We spoke to Larry Bijou, Head of Bijou Properties, about Garden Street Lofts—Hoboken's first green high-rise residential building.
Is Garden Street Lofts open yet or is it still under construction?
It is under construction. It should be completed by the end of June.
What level of LEED certification are you aiming for?
We currently have the building as designated under a silver certification. That's the minimum certification we’re trying to shoot for. We may be gold, but we're not certain about that at this point.
Garden Street Lofts is going to be Hoboken's first LEED-certified residential building?
I think it's among the first in the state being a high-rise residential building. It's an interesting building. It's pretty much a historical building of sorts, even though it doesn’t have a historical designation. It's what you would refer to as a heritage building from the industrial days of Hoboken. It was built between 1918 and 1922. The name on the original building was the Philippine Desiccated Coconut Building. It was built as a dry goods warehouse. In the following years it had several uses in the same vein of storage. Lastly it was a film storage building. We actually preserved the entire original structure. In addition to that, we hired an architectural firm from Manhattan called Shop. They had a concept for this property that they used on a similar building in downtown Manhattan called the Porterhouse. We preserved the old portion of the building and added a new addition to it, which rises along the side of the building and up and over it, on top of it, and is set back so when you look at the building you have the old and the new. The new construction is a zinc façade which is very unique and it really makes the building a beautiful structure.
What were some of the green building practices that were implemented in the construction of Garden Street Lofts?
All of our floors are bamboo renewable floors. All of our windows are low-emitting materials. We filter fresh air into every unit and use VOC-free paints. That's a big issue for people who have asthma or any other kind of allergies. It's basically just a reduction of indoor chemical pollution sources. Day-lighting is also very important. In order to light the space in the right was you have properly sized windows, and the right type of glazing depending on how the building is located, vis-à-vis the tract of the sun.
We use Bosch washers and dryers which are made out of recycled materials. We have high performance HVAC systems with multi-zone controls. All of our products are pretty much 100 percent recycled and sustainable. We also have a green roof on the property to reduce storm water run-off and keep the building warmer in the winter time and cooler in the summer.
Garden Street Lofts is the first LEED certified high-rise residential building in Hoboken—and as you said—maybe New Jersey. Why did you take such initiative in leading the way?
I'd like to say that I might be the first one in Hoboken, but this is a movement that's been in existence for quite some time. There are many LEED certified projects throughout the United States and Europe, so it's not entirely new. I really believe that this is the beginning of a very large movement. I think that this is how buildings are going to be built in the future and that this is how our cities will be able to sustain themselves. Urban areas are having so many problems with new construction and building and impact on municipal resources. These are all areas that we fail to address when we're building new projects. So the green strategy is one that really does take all of this into account.
Who's moving in?
We're beginning to market our units now. There are 30 of them. They're relatively large in comparison to what’s offered in the general marketplace, about 30 to 40 percent larger. We're finding that a lot of the younger people who are beginning to raise families are very much in tune with what's going on in the environmental movement and the building movement. They want to live in safe, healthy homes.
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