Empire Stores Project Receives Pre-Certification for LEED Core & Shell

EMPIRE STORES has fulfilled the requirements of PRE-CERTIFICATION under LEED for Core & Shell development. The project is on track to achieve LEED Silver certification. Documentation has successfully been submitted to GBCI for this project which demonstrates the project team’s intent to design and build a high performance LEED green building.

EMPIRE STORES is a complex of seven contiguous four- and five-story historic warehouses that are being renovated into a unique mixed-use destination on the waterfront in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. The warehouses were built between 1869 and 1885 and primarily used for coffee storage until they were abandoned in the 1960s. The properties are registered on the New York State Registry of Historic Buildings, and the project involves extensive preservation of the building shell.

A team led by Midtown Equities and the HK Organization was awarded the development rights to the property from New York State Redevelopment Authority.  Their proposed building plan features nearly 80,000 square feet of restaurant, retail, and event space and 300,000 square feet of office space. The Design Architect for the project is Studio V Architecture and the architect of record is S9 Architecture. The Owner has retained Spiezle Architectural group to serve as LEED consultant and to administer the certification for property.

The project is located in a highly accessible, transit-friendly, business and residential neighborhood. The existing structures and new rooftop additions feature large areas of vegetated roof and terraces. The property is connected to an innovative stormwater management system that supplies irrigation for the adjacent Brooklyn Bridge Park. The architects have successfully created dynamic public spaces within the massive stone and timber structure of the historic warehouses, and have been able to preserve original materials and character to a great extent. Tenant design guidelines illustrate a number of strategies that are being used to make this a LEED Silver building. EMPIRE STORES expects to achieve final Core & Shell Certification towards the end of 2016.

Precertification is a unique aspect of the LEED program that offers Owners and Developers the opportunity to promote the proposed green features of their Core & Shell building prior to the project being fully occupied.