Green Giant (Condé Nast building at 4 Times Square)

The Condé Nast building at 4 Times Square in Manhattan has been called the “green giant” (since 1997; the building opened in 1999) because of energy-efficient or “green” features that were added for its construction. The 48-floor “green giant” is the third-tallest building in New York City.
 
 
Wikipedia: Condé Nast Building
The Condé Nast Building, officially 4 Times Square, is a modern skyscraper in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. Located on Broadway between 42nd Street and 43rd, the structure was finished in January 2000 as part of a larger project to redevelop 42nd Street. The building stretches 48 stories to 809 ft (247 m) making it the 12th tallest building in New York City and the 41st tallest in the United States. The size of the tower raised concerns from the city about what impact this sized tower would have on Times Square. The major office space tenants are magazine publishing company Condé Nast Publications and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the wealthiest U.S. law firm. Major retail tenants include ESPN Zone and Duane Reade.
 
4 Times Square is owned by The Durst Organization. The architects were Fox & Fowle who also designed the Reuters Building as part of the larger project. The building contains 1,600,000 square feet (149,000 m2) (150,000 m²) of floor space. In 1995, 4 Times Square was the first speculative office building to be developed in New York City in almost a decade, but it was fully leased and occupied almost immediately after completion. The City Hall chose Fox & Fowle architectural firm to design the building because they were known as the designers of ecologically sustainable buildings.
 
NASDAQ MarketSite at the bottom of the Condé Nast Building (Times Square, New York City) at nightNASDAQ’s MarketSite is located at the northwest corner of the building. It is a seven-story cylindrical tower with a high-tech electronic display, providing market quotes, financial news and advertisements. The ground floor of the MarketSite contains a television studio with a wall of monitors and an arc of windows looking out onto Times Square.
 
During 2002 and 2003, the existing radio antenna, built for Clear Channel Communications as a backup transmitter site for its four FM stations, was removed and replaced with a 300-foot (91 m) mast to support television and radio broadcasters who were displaced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Including the antenna, its height is 1,143 ft (348 m), making it the third tallest structure in New York City, behind the Empire State Building and the Bank of America Tower.
 
Green design
4 Times Square is one of the most important examples of green design in skyscrapers in the United States. Environmentally friendly gas-fired absorption chillers, along with a high-performing insulating and shading curtain wall, ensure that the building does not need to be heated or cooled for the majority of the year. Office furniture is made with biodegradable and non-toxic materials. The air-delivery system provides 50% more fresh air than is required by New York City Building Code, and a number of recycling chutes serve the entire building. Being the first project of its size to undertake these features in construction, the building has received an award from the American Institute of Architects, as well as AIA New York State.
 
Wikipedia: Jolly Green Giant
The Jolly Green Giant is a symbol of the Green Giant food company of the United States, appearing as a smiling green-skinned giant wearing a tunic, wreath and boots made of leaves. In 1973, JGG teamed up with “Little Green Sprout”, the diminutive young green giant. Created by Leo Burnett, the Giant first appeared in advertisements in 1928; the name originally came from a variety of unusually large pea called the “Green Giant” that the company canned and sold.
 
10 August 1997, Chicago (IL) Tribune, “The Green Light Tower May Signal Go-Ahead for Environmentally Sensitive Construction” by John Handley:
The “Jolly Green Giant” has planted his feet firmly on Times Square…
   
Global Engineering Conference - 1998
Four Times Square – Manhattan’s Green Giant: A Case Study
Robert J. Fox, Jr.
. The Condé Nast Building, 48 stories and 1.6 million square feet. The first building of its size to adopt standards for energy efficiency, indoor ecology, sustainable materials and responsible construction, operation and maintenance procedures.
. Lessons learned about applying environmentally-responsible design.
. Implications for future office building designs.
. Specific “green” features, including glass selection and day lighting, the central cooling plant, on-site electrical generation by means of fuel cells and building-integrated photo-voltaic cells, indoor air quality, and tenant fit out work.
 
NYC 24 (2001)
The Conde Nast Building, 4 Times Square
This is the house that Durst built. The 51-story “Green Giant,” sits at 4 Times Square on the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway. Designed by Fox & Fowle Architects and developed by the Durst Organization, it is New York’s first commercially green-designed, high-rise.
 
It’s not easy being green. In fact, it’s downright expensive.
 
In 1997, the Durst Orgainzation forked out a cool $240 million to get the “Green Giant” on its feet. In addition,it plugs in another $14 million each year to keeping it running in an environmentally friendly fashion. Douglas Durst, president of the Durst Organization, says that it cost $8-per-square-foot annually to run the Conde Nast building. Rentals are slightly higher than market rates, added Durst, up by about 2 per cent.
 
The Durst group would not comment on the buildings profit margins after its green investments. But Durst said Conde Nast building is running at a profit.
 
Google Books
The Sustainable Urban Development Reader
By Stephen Maxwell Wheeler and Timothy Beatley
London: Routledge
2004
Pg. 300:
Condé Nast building (4 Times Square), New York
Nicknamed the “green giant,” the Condé Nast building, also known as 4 Times Square, is the first major office structure in New York City designed and built around sustainability principles (See plates CS7 and CS8). Completed in 1999, the building is forty-eight stories in height and includes 1.6 million square feet of space. Designed by the architectural firm Fox and Fowle, the structure incorporates many impressive sustainability features. These include a very energy-efficient building design, utilizing large low-emissity windows (that capture sunlight and retain heat) that provide extensive daylight to the building, natural gas absorption chiller/heaters, added insulation, thin film photovoltaic panels (on the south and east facades, on the top nine floors of the building, producing about 15 kW at peak) and two 200-kW fuel cells that produce enough energy to operate the building in the evening. THe building’s unique ventilation system delivers much more fresh air to building occupants than a typical building—five times the amount required by code.
 
Careful planning of construction deliveries (reducing engine idling), and management and recycling of construction waste were also important elements. Other green elements of the building include non-CFC air-conditioning, use of energy-efficient, variable speed motors and pumps, use of low-water-use fixtures, and extensive use of recycled materials in its construction.