Public Employee Press

Greening of New York–a series
Parks building goes green

By JANE LaTOUR

Skilled union professionals, all members of Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375, have designed the Parks Department’s first green building — the Marine Park project — a complex, sustainable, structure that will conserve energy from top to bottom.

Every aspect of the plan is integrated into a grand green scheme to conserve energy. The vegetative roof — green as grass — features plants and solar panels. A system of controls that react to natural light and sensors that react to people make the lighting energy-efficient throughout.

“It’s designed to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” said Architect Campbell Morrison, who heads the talented team of architects, engineers and other experts who have created the facility at the agency’s Olmsted Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

To cut the use of fuel for transportation, all the materials, many of them recyclable — from bricks to tiles to indigenous plants — will come from within 500 miles. A bike path, bike racks and nearby showers will help encourage bicycling to and from the site. A dedicated parking space for a hybrid car and an electrical outlet to “refill” it, a deliberately small parking lot to discourage the use of automobiles, and proximity to public transportation are all part of the careful scheme to go completely green.

The project fits within the Mayor’s PlaNYC 2030, the ambitious master plan issued in 2008 that aims to build a better, greener New York City. Construction started with driving the piles on April 28, 2008, and is targeted to finish in 2010.

The new building will replace a demolished field house and operate as a community center, where senior citizens can be served three meals a day that are heated in a “warming pantry.” It will have classrooms with computers, a general-purpose community room, offices and lockers. Staff will be trained to maintain the complex heating, ventilation and lighting systems, and an exhibit and instructional video will educate the public about the project’s green features.