Green Deal
It's
a real-estate developer's pipe dream: building green and making a
profit.
Green buildings are hot property these days. So
hot that it's rumored that the new New York Times building at 44
Street and Eight Avenue is leaping onto the green
bandwagon.
Not
so fast though, warn market analysts. They say the demand for
green design is dependent on the real-estate market's current
upswing. "The buildings are pretty filled up today," said Greg
Tosko, senior managing director at Insignia/ESG, a Manhattan-based
international real-estate broker. "It's been a very active and
full real estate market. And that has certainly helped these green
buildings."
Douglas Durst, president of the Manhattan based
real-estate developer, Durst Organization, believes people have
more money and are willing to pay higher rents for environmentally
sensitive features.
After all, When the
Conde Nast Building opened its doors last year, it was filled to
capacity. And today, the Reuters building is moving in that
direction, literally months after setting up its green shop.
A big factor in Reuters' move to set up a green shop was a
tax incentive. It was written into New York State law in May 2000
and gives cash back to any developers of a green building. It
means any green developer will now get anything from 5 percent to
10 percent back on the initial cost of construction.
"Every owner and developer has a different vantage point
on whether to go green," said Tosko. "With the tax cuts, a
company's internal thought process and its motivation to embrace
the idea is a very real long-term view," he said. "Green design is
in the eyes of the beholder, and everybody will have a different
definition of it's advantages and disadvantages."
