We've covered the huge and hugely ambitious LEED-hopeful police academy that broke ground in College Point, Queens back in December -- Stephen wrote about it before it broke ground, I wrote about it as it broke ground, and in the interest of actually continuing to follow a project we (as usual) dubbed "worth watching," it seemed worthy of mention to note that STV and Turner have, in a joint venture, been granted the $656 million construction contract for the facility. Everything that was kind of sketchy about the development in the first place remains sketchy -- the vast distance from mass transit (over a mile from the 7 train and LIRR) and the huge load on the neighborhood's sewage and water systems. Everything that was exciting about the design (by Perkins + Will and Michael Fieldman Architects) in the first place remains in place, too -- the green roofs and innovative water conservation measures and daylight harvesting and etc. So where does this leave us?
Honestly, kind of apologetic that there isn't more real green news to report today, after the three-day weekend. All the big real estate news of the day is -- despite all these Irreversible Macro Trends we keep writing about -- not necessarily green, and somehow none of the astonishing 46 new hotels that are apparently in development in New York this year are terribly green. (There are, somehow, only three New York DEC-certified green hotels in New York City, period) Believe me, I'd love to write about a green hotel in New York City. I'd even love to write about the police academy, if something interesting was going on there. But, you know, maybe tomorrow? Yeah, let's hope for better news/actual-news tomorrow.
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