Global commercial real estate services firm Newmark has arranged a $535.8 million loan on behalf of GFP Real Estate, Metro Loft Management and Rockwood Capital for the acquisition and redevelopment of 25 Water Street. Designed by CetraRuddy, 25 Water Street is a 22-story, 1.1 million-square-foot office building in New York City’s historic Financial District. This transaction represents the largest ever office-to-residential conversion in the United States.
Upon redevelopment, the property will be refitted to feature approximately 1,300 residential units ranging from studios to four-bedrooms. The property’s 12’4″ slab-to-slab ceiling heights and expansive 40,330-square-foot floor plates provide an attractive canvas for residential conversion. The property will also provide residents with an unmatched amenity package relative to other rental buildings in lower Manhattan. Fitness amenities are expected to include a basketball court, a steam room/sauna, indoor and outdoor pools and sports simulators. Lifestyle amenities are expected to include an expansive sky lounge and landscaped outdoor rooftop terrace and multiple entertainment and coworking spaces. See this New York YIMBY article for project updates and photos.
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By Matt Herr, Trojan Battery's senior product manager for Motive — Facilities maintenance and cleaning managers need help with increasing workloads, rising wages, and high turnover. If you are among them, you don’t need to add battery glitches to that list. Whether you rent or own your equipment, you need maintenance-free, affordable batteries that deliver long life and overcome the limits of standard AGM technology.
Here’s the problem. Although standard AGM batteries are maintenance-free, they should not be operated at depths of discharge below 60% in most applications. Further, they are not designed for opportunity charging because cycle life is decreased over time if this is done repeatedly. If these batteries are not fully charged after each use — which often happens on busy work sites — they experience corrosion, sulfation and early failure. Indeed, they may deliver shorter-than-expected life because of the harm occurring in a partial charge state.
Some manufacturers, including Trojan, now offer new premium AGM Advanced Energy Story (AES) batteries with carbon additives designed to solve those problems. These maintenance-free valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries expand the boundaries of standard AGM technology. They dramatically improve cycle life, reduce downtime and replacement costs, and streamline productivity.
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This article originally appeared in the May/June 2023 issue of FMJ
By Jason Lund, leader of JLL Technology Infrastructure - US — Property owners and FMs must be aware that all smart buildings are innately vulnerable to cyberattacks. While IT and telecom are well developed within the cybersecurity realm, the same cannot be said for much of the operating technology found in smart buildings. Within a typical office building, there could be 20 independent networks vulnerable to hacking. On average, only five or six are highly secured.
Once a system is hacked, cybercriminals could manipulate HVAC systems; infiltrate sprinkler systems; and exploit smart access technology, such as intelligent credentials and contactless building access. Data hacking is another area of concern. Passwords and personal information can become compromised, leading to identity or intellectual theft.
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Innovative workplace furnishings manufacturer Teknion has announced the launch of Tone, a new entry-level, fully adjustable task chair. In partnership with forpeople, a creative agency based in the United Kingdom, Tone provides users exactly what they are looking for without all the extra bells and whistles — challenging the convention that affordable means limited options and compromised comfort. Thoughtful in each detail at an accessible price point, Tone innovatively marries the needs of people, place and planet.
Built for the current “more for less” economic climate, Tone doesn’t require sacrificing good design to meet a project budget. By minimizing the scope of the chair’s capabilities to focus on fine-tuning the core mechanisms prone to quick wear and tear, Tone reinforces reliability and safety without compromising aesthetics. Product Manager Julia La notes that Tone is "intuitive and inviting, returning to the simplicity of prioritizing comfort and accessibility over overly elaborate and intimidating high-tech designs."
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The Book of the Week from FMLink's new Books section hails from the Green Building category. This collection of peer-reviewed books has been curated by the editorial team at FMLink to provide facilities, engineering and A&D professionals with access to publications relating to the Green Building topic.
Turn to Emerald Architecture: Case Studies in Green Building for a full-color collection of 24 in-depth case studies of sustainable structures and facilities. Packed with more than 200 design-inspiring photos and illustrations, this beautiful architectural guide presents design data and specifications from a wide variety of projects. For each case study, Emerald Architecture gives a description of the building, how it works, and how successful it has been.
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This article originally appeared in the January/February 2023 issue of CMM
by Kathleen Misovic — On the cusp of the second decade of the 21st century, infection prevention specialists were pleased with the progress facilities had made against the threat of both health care-associated infections (HAIs) and deaths attributed to antimicrobial resistance.
From 2012 to 2017, deaths from antimicrobial resistance decreased by 18% overall and 30% in hospitals, according to a report the CDC released last year studying the impact of Covid-19 on antimicrobial resistance. Similarly, CDC’s 2018 HAI progress report found that C. difficile (C. diff) infections decreased by 12% in acute care hospitals, central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) decreased by 9%, and catheter-associated urinary infections (CAUTIs) decreased by 8%. CDC credited this progress to improvements in infection prevention and control efforts and better use of antimicrobials.
Unfortunately, much of this progress was short-lived. A few years later, the Covid-19 pandemic pushed healthcare facilities to their breaking points, resulting in increased antimicrobial use as well as difficulty in following infection prevention and control guidance. These challenges predictably led to an increase in healthcare-associated, antimicrobial-resistant infections in U.S. hospitals, with a 15% increase in both resistant hospital-onset infections and deaths during the first year of the pandemic.
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Global worktech provider Eptura has unveiled a series of enhancements for its Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS), Archibus, offering increased visibility and reporting for occupancy, allowing facilities management (FM) teams to leverage building operations data in the field, and introducing new bulk lease renewal capabilities.
Today’s facility management teams are facing a growing workload and an expanded role in ongoing space planning conversations. As these responsibilities mount, and organizations look to solidify the future of their workplace accommodations, facility managers are increasingly looking for accessible, actionable operations data to inform planning decisions. Eptura’s updates to the Archibus platform are enabling building owner-operators to digitize facility operations and analytics.
The enhancements unlock new capabilities in Archibus’s Building Information Modeling (BIM) Viewer tool, allowing post-construction teams to more effectively manage their buildings. In the lifecycle of a building, 80% of the costs are associated with the post-construction phase, making it crucial for data to transfer smoothly from construction over to post-building operators and ensure lifecycle continuity.
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The design-build industry has every incentive to stop contributing to landfills, to question conventional construction methods, and to limit damaging emissions because its leadership cares about the future of our planet and humans’ well-being. Fortunately, FreeAxez designed Gridd with the goal of creating a system that would be long-lasting and reusable, counting construction’s negative impact and making a positive difference. Gridd® by FreeAxez is a low-profile raised floor and cable management system made from steel, one of the most durable materials available, with minimal components. Gridd was created with the goal of remaining in use forever — easily relocated, reconfigured or repurposed — and never being discarded into a landfill.
FreeAxez commissioned The McMorrow Reports to research and write the paper, The Circular Economy of Gridd®: How to Deliver the Power to Change, which explores the circularity of Gridd as considered under the ISO 59.010 Standard: Circular Economy. A case study is presented that compares a project with conventional wiring and cable management (with wires and cables above ceilings and embedded in walls) to a project that uses Gridd, with the goal of illustrating how Gridd is not only a circular product, but also is an alternative to other cabling methods because of the potentially smaller carbon footprint for installation.
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