Playbook for Green Buildings + Neighborhoods | Buildings | Tough energy, water standards pay off for NYC neighborhood

A Lower Manhattan neighborhood built on an environmentally incorrect landfill in the Hudson River is fast becoming the home of one of the nation's greenest residential communities.

July 2, 2010

A Lower Manhattan neighborhood built on an environmentally incorrect landfill in the Hudson River is fast becoming the home of one of the nation's greenest residential communities.

Battery Park City -- which has 12,000 or so residents and the World Financial District -- was built over the past 40 years on 92 acres of dirt excavated from the World Trade Center construction and sand dredged from the harbor.

While turning river bottom -- even one lined with battered shipping piers, as Battery Park City's was in the 1960s -- into real estate is now an environmental sin, the planned community has atoned by becoming home to residential and office projects that are built or are being built to the world's toughest energy and eco-friendly construction standards.

>> Read More

Source: E&E News

Energy Star Challenge would improve the energy efficiency of commercial and industrial buildings by 10% or more, saving businesses $20 billion a year and reducing greenhouse gas emissions enough to equal those from 30 million vehicles. (US EPA)