On June 21, 2010, the NYC Brownfield Partnership hosted its second annual Big Apple Brownfield Awards Ceremony at the New York University School of Law and recognized five of New York City’s most outstanding brownfield redevelopment projects.

Click on a link or scroll down to learn more about each award recipient.

• Green Building Award – IAC Building
  
• Affordable Housing Award – Atlantic Avenue Apartments
  
• Environmental Protection Award – JFK’s American Airlines Terminal Redevelopment
  
• Economic Development Award - Bronx Park Apartments
  
• Open Space Award - The Shops at Atlas Park

Green Building Award – IAC Building

Located along the Hudson River waterfront and visible from the High Line, Frank Gehry’s innovative IAC headquarters demonstrates excellence in synergy between brownfield redevelopment and green building design.  The site, which housed a manufactured gas plant during the 19^th century, posed remedial and construction challenges due to contaminated soil and groundwater.

After environmental concerns were properly addressed, the subsequent building design integrated innovative approaches to water and energy use reduction including, among other elements, a computer driven shade control system to monitor daylight and constructing the building’s roof with a highly reflective material to reduce the building’s overall heat load.  The IAC Building proudly serves as an inspiration for future remedial and redevelopment projects to embrace green building design and construction.

Affordable Housing Award – Atlantic Avenue Apartments

The Atlantic Avenue Apartment Complex, located on a former 50,628 square foot vacant lot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, is the product of successful remedial and redevelopment efforts.  The property had been vacant since the 1970s.  The project was only the fourth multi-family, high-rise building in the country to receive Energy-star certification from the USEPA through NYSERDA’s Multifamily Performance Program (it beat the baseline efficiency of ASHRAE 90.1 by 20%).  

Accomplished through collaboration among the NYC Department of Housing, Preservation and Development, developers and local residents, the 150-unit Atlantic Avenue Apartment Complex offers a spacious community room, a beautifully landscaped yard, a children’s play area and a daycare service, operated by the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service.  Apartments have been rented to households in four income tiers serving families with a broad range of incomes from 40% of Area Median Income (HUD’s annual calculation by county) to 90% of AMI.  The Atlantic Apartments offer low-income families the chance to have a secure and welcoming home.

Environmental Protection Award – JFK’s American Airlines Terminal Redevelopment

Concurrent with American Airlines’ $1.3 billion terminal redevelopment project at JFK International Airport, URS Corp. and American Airlines collaborated to remediate subsurface environmental contamination at Concourses A and B caused by aged infrastructure, in particular, the fuel delivery system and a former field of underground storage tanks. The primary contaminants of concern were free product, total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), benzene, and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE).

The primary treatment alternative selected to address free product recovery was multi-phase extraction (MPE). Eight fixed MPE systems were installed with over 220 extraction wells to remediate the aerial extent of 9.4 acres of light non-aqueous petroleum phase liquid (LNAPL) plumes. Supplemental in-situ technologies (i.e. bioremediation, chemical oxidation, and monitored natural attenuation) were necessary to achieve site closure requirements. In total, approximately 300,000 gallons of free product and 18 million gallons of groundwater were remediated.

Economic Development Award - Bronx Park Apartments

Located on White Plains Road, the Bronx Park Apartments is a 7-story mixed-use building consisting of 74 units of affordable housing and approximately 11,000 square feet of commercial space on a former gas station and auto repair shop site.  The retail component of the building is being leased to a major supermarket chain, a much needed amenity that was pursued by local residents.

The business is anticipated to create approximately 50 permanent jobs for managers, warehouse workers, grocery workers, and administrative staff.  The resulting project is a homerun scenario for the area; one which removes a contaminated site and replaces it not only with affordable housing but also with a much needed resource that serves as a neighborhood anchor and provides a considerable number of locally sourced jobs.

Open Space Award - The Shops at Atlas Park

Family owned for four generations, the Atlas Terminals Industrial Park housed a number of industries from 1922 to the 1980s. Damon Hemmerdinger, a fourth-generation developer, was interested in cleaning the property and converting it to a more productive use. In the true spirit of community outreach, the owner wanted to give back to the same community that had sustained his family’s Atlas Terminals Industrial Park for four generations.

The Shops at Atlas Park, known as a lifestyle center, the first of its kind in New York State, includes more than two acres of public recreational open space in the center of the development that is surrounded by retail specialty shops, restaurants, and a movie theater. The Shops at Atlas Park is both an entertainment and shopping destination designed to significantly enhance the lifestyle of residents in the immediate Glendale, Forest Hills and Middle Village areas as well as residents throughout the five boroughs and beyond.