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How To Use This 360 Tour:
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Empire
Stores
53-83 Water St,
Brooklyn, NY 11201
___
Empire Stores
New York, New York, USA
2019 Winner: ULI Global Awards for Excellence
A successful public-private partnership has led to a sparkling new development on the Brooklyn waterfront, where a massive, long-disused, 19th-century coffee bean warehouse is now a 21st-century assemblage of stores, dining, a private club, premium tech offices, and lush public space. A diagonal slice through the 450-foot-long property unites all elements, opening the once-dark interior and creating welcoming public spaces. The loss of floor area resulting from this intervention enabled the addition of two new stories to the structure, providing sweeping views of the East River and lower Manhattan Skyline on one side and of a revived Brooklyn on the other.
2020 ULI Virtual Tours
Empire Stores Fact Sheet
New York City, New York, USA
A successful public-private partnership has led to a sparkling new development on the Brooklyn waterfront, where a massive, long-disused, 19th-century coffee bean warehouse is now a 21st-century assemblage of stores, dining, a private club, premium tech offices, and lush public space.
A diagonal slice through the 450-foot-long property unites all elements, opening the once-dark interior and creating welcoming public spaces. The loss of floor area resulting from this intervention enabled the addition of two new stories to the structure, providing sweeping views of the East River and lower Manhattan Skyline on one side and of a revived Brooklyn on the other.
TIMELINE
Date Acquired: September 2013
Date Started: January 2014
Date Opened: August 2016
SITE SIZE
Buildings: 440,575 square feet (40,931 square meters)
Street/parking: None
Open space: 35,000 square feet (3,251 square meters)
Total: 79,650 square feet (7,400 square meters)
PROJECT TEAM
Developers
Midtown Equities; HK Organization; Rockwood Capital
Designers
Studio V Architecture and S9 Architecture; Perkins Eastman
General Contractor
Veracity Partners
Landscape Designer
Future Green Studio
Structural Engineer
Robert Silman Associates
MEP Engineer
Mottola Rini Engineers
LEED Consultant
Spiezle Architectural Group
Lighting Consultant
Tillotson Design Associates
KEYWORDS
Adaptive use and building reuse
Awards
Food and real estate
Historic preservation
Mixed use and multi-use
Office - buildings
Open space and parks
Recreation and entertainment
Resilience
Retail
Waterfront
CLIMATE RISKS TO SITE
River & inland flooding
Sea level rise
Stormwater inundation
CLIMATE-RISK MITIGATION STRATEGIES
Backup power
Elevated mechanicals
Flood walls
Green infrastructure & landscape features
Renewable & distributed energy
WEBSITE
ADDRESS
53-83 Water Street
New York, NY 11201
United States of America
© 2020 by the Urban Land Institute.
All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of the whole or any part of the contents of this publication without written permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.
Urban Land Institute 2001 L St., NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20036-4948
Credits
Empire Stores – ULI Virtual Tour
Contributors
Jack Cayre
Principal
Midtown Equities
Sital Patel
Principal
S9 Architecture
David Seiter
Principal and Design Director
Future Green Studio
Deborah F. Schwartz
President and CEO
Brooklyn Historical Society
Jay Valgora
Principal and Founder
Studio V Architecture
Special Thanks
Madeline Clappin, Studio V Architecture
Thuan Lu, Studio V Architecture
Cayetana Nicanor, S9 Architecture
Writer and Accessibility Consultant
Peter Slatin
Virtual Tour Producer
Matt Sheils, Point of Capture
© 2020 by the Urban Land Institute.
All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of the whole or any part of the contents of this publication without written permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.
Urban Land Institute 2001 L St., NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20036-4948
ABOUT THE URBAN LAND INSTITUTE
The Urban Land Institute is a global, member-driven organization comprising more than 45,000 real estate and urban development professionals dedicated to advancing the Institute’s mission of providing leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide.
ULI’s interdisciplinary membership represents all aspects of the industry, including developers, property owners, investors, architects, urban planners, public officials, real estate brokers, appraisers, attorneys, engineers, financiers, and academics. Established in 1936, the Institute has a presence in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific regions, with members in 80 countries.
The extraordinary impact that ULI makes on land use decision-making is based on its members sharing expertise on a variety of factors affecting the built environment, including urbanization, demographic and population changes, new economic drivers, technology advancements, and environmental concerns.
Peer-to-peer learning is achieved through the knowledge shared by members at thousands of convenings each year that reinforce ULI’s position as a global authority on land use and real estate. In 2019 alone, more than 2,400 events were held in about 330 cities around the world. Drawing on the work of its members, the Institute recognizes and shares best practices in urban design and development for the benefit of communities around the globe.
More information is available at uli.org.
Follow ULI on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Empire Stores
New York, New York, USA
2019 Winner: ULI Global Awards for Excellence
A successful public-private partnership has led to a sparkling new development on the Brooklyn waterfront, where a massive, long-disused, 19th-century coffee bean warehouse is now a 21st-century assemblage of stores, dining, a private club, premium tech offices, and lush public space. A diagonal slice through the 450-foot-long property unites all elements, opening the once-dark interior and creating welcoming public spaces. The loss of floor area resulting from this intervention enabled the addition of two new stories to the structure, providing sweeping views of the East River and lower Manhattan Skyline on one side and of a revived Brooklyn on the other.
The most sustainable feature of all in the Empire Stores design is the preservation and restoration of these remarkable 19th century historic structures.
As much as half of a building’s total carbon footprint over its lifetime can be attributed to embodied carbon -- the carbon emissions attributed to manufacturing and transporting construction materials and the process of construction. Structural systems can comprise up to 80 percent of a building’s embodied carbon, depending on building type, so the most significant factor in a building’s embodied carbon is whether the development uses an existing building or constructs a new one. Large quantities of steel and concrete are most frequently used in the structure of new buildings, so by taking advantage of existing infrastructure via redevelopment of existing assets – as was the case in Empire Buildings -- projects can avoid spending on raw materials and significantly decrease embodied carbon.
Unlike operational carbon, embodied carbon cannot be reduced in materials once a building’s construction is complete. As buildings continue to improve operational efficiency, embodied carbon will become a larger proportion of the buildings’ overall lifetime carbon emissions. Although awareness of this topic is still growing, reckoning with embodied carbon is a necessary step for the real estate industry as it works to mitigate climate change.
Embodied Carbon in Building Materials for Real Estate, created by the ULI Greenprint Center for Building Performance, highlights smart steps to reduce embodied carbon, makes the business case for why real estate should pay attention, and showcases peers already addressing the issue. Read the full report to learn more. Empire Stores exceeds conventional standards of sustainability, including LEED Silver. Many green designs are unconventional, such as recycling bricks from destroyed warehouses to rebuild collapsing walls, as well as reusing original timbers as structure to support the new courtyard and replace original timbers destroyed by fire and flood. Large green roofs reduce urban heat island and provide beautiful public spaces. Stormwater is diverted to a cistern to irrigate Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Empire Stores sits just 20 feet from the East River, requiring the design and development team to create a strategy that would protect tenants during almost any storm and get them back to work within weeks of even the most cataclysmic storm.
The team had to form this strategy without elevating the structure. The waterfront location, historic-district requirements, and century-old buildings made lifting the structure onto a podium a nonstarter.
Midtown Equities chief Jack Cayre posed the following question to the team: “Can we create something you can clean up after a storm with a mop, rather than something that requires us spend months tearing out Sheetrock?”
The solution was AquaFence, a retractable flood wall that staff can store when the building doesn’t need it.
“For us it was going to be this dam system that would keep the water away from the building,” Cayre said. “It was something that our construction and engineering people felt very strongly would give them the highest level of certainty in terms of it having a track record and being tested.”
The fence’s separation from the main structure kept costs and complexities from disrupting the project, according to Cayre. He described the cost of installing, removing and storing the fence a “rounding error,” saying existing staff can handle the testing and deployment without trouble. They test it twice a year for a day-and-a-half at a time.
The fence’s portable nature also helped keep construction on schedule. “Once we made the decision to do something not connected with the building, construction continued while were doing the research into the AquaFence,” Cayre said.
The original stone walls and floors, which kept coffee beans from fermenting, can also make returning to the office straightforward for 21st century professionals. “When [Superstorm] Sandy came, the walls got wet,” Cayre said. “A week later, it was dry, and it was done.”
The most sustainable feature of all in the Empire Stores design is the preservation and restoration of these remarkable 19th century historic structures.
As much as half of a building’s total carbon footprint over its lifetime can be attributed to embodied carbon -- the carbon emissions attributed to manufacturing and transporting construction materials and the process of construction. Structural systems can comprise up to 80 percent of a building’s embodied carbon, depending on building type, so the most significant factor in a building’s embodied carbon is whether the development uses an existing building or constructs a new one. Large quantities of steel and concrete are most frequently used in the structure of new buildings, so by taking advantage of existing infrastructure via redevelopment of existing assets – as was the case in Empire Buildings -- projects can avoid spending on raw materials and significantly decrease embodied carbon.
Unlike operational carbon, embodied carbon cannot be reduced in materials once a building’s construction is complete. As buildings continue to improve operational efficiency, embodied carbon will become a larger proportion of the buildings’ overall lifetime carbon emissions. Although awareness of this topic is still growing, reckoning with embodied carbon is a necessary step for the real estate industry as it works to mitigate climate change.
Embodied Carbon in Building Materials for Real Estate, created by the ULI Greenprint Center for Building Performance, highlights smart steps to reduce embodied carbon, makes the business case for why real estate should pay attention, and showcases peers already addressing the issue. Read the full report to learn more. Empire Stores exceeds conventional standards of sustainability, including LEED Silver. Many green designs are unconventional, such as recycling bricks from destroyed warehouses to rebuild collapsing walls, as well as reusing original timbers as structure to support the new courtyard and replace original timbers destroyed by fire and flood. Large green roofs reduce urban heat island and provide beautiful public spaces. Stormwater is diverted to a cistern to irrigate Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Empire Stores manages to exceed energy code requirements while exposing beautiful natural materials and obviating the need to cover them with insulation. The colossal brick walls, over seven wythes thick, provided sufficient thermal mass in conjunction with high performance windows, enhanced roof insulation, and green roofs.
Empire Stores
New York, New York, USA
2019 Winner: ULI Global Awards for Excellence
A successful public-private partnership has led to a sparkling new development on the Brooklyn waterfront, where a massive, long-disused, 19th-century coffee bean warehouse is now a 21st-century assemblage of stores, dining, a private club, premium tech offices, and lush public space. A diagonal slice through the 450-foot-long property unites all elements, opening the once-dark interior and creating welcoming public spaces. The loss of floor area resulting from this intervention enabled the addition of two new stories to the structure, providing sweeping views of the East River and lower Manhattan Skyline on one side and of a revived Brooklyn on the other.
Empire Stores sits just 20 feet from the East River, requiring the design and development team to create a strategy that would protect tenants during almost any storm and get them back to work within weeks of even the most cataclysmic storm.
The team had to form this strategy without elevating the structure. The waterfront location, historic-district requirements, and century-old buildings made lifting the structure onto a podium a nonstarter.
Midtown Equities chief Jack Cayre posed the following question to the team: “Can we create something you can clean up after a storm with a mop, rather than something that requires us spend months tearing out Sheetrock?”
The solution was AquaFence, a retractable flood wall that staff can store when the building doesn’t need it.
“For us it was going to be this dam system that would keep the water away from the building,” Cayre said. “It was something that our construction and engineering people felt very strongly would give them the highest level of certainty in terms of it having a track record and being tested.”
The fence’s separation from the main structure kept costs and complexities from disrupting the project, according to Cayre. He described the cost of installing, removing and storing the fence a “rounding error,” saying existing staff can handle the testing and deployment without trouble. They test it twice a year for a day-and-a-half at a time.
The fence’s portable nature also helped keep construction on schedule. “Once we made the decision to do something not connected with the building, construction continued while were doing the research into the AquaFence,” Cayre said.
The original stone walls and floors, which kept coffee beans from fermenting, can also make returning to the office straightforward for 21st century professionals. “When [Superstorm] Sandy came, the walls got wet,” Cayre said. “A week later, it was dry, and it was done.”
Empire Stores manages to exceed energy code requirements while exposing beautiful natural materials and obviating the need to cover them with insulation. The colossal brick walls, over seven wythes thick, provided sufficient thermal mass in conjunction with high performance windows, enhanced roof insulation, and green roofs.