Sky High Green
NEW YORK — The city’s second-tallest skyscraper is now one of New York’s greenest buildings.
The Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, home to the bank’s New York operations, achieved LEED Platinum certification recently, marking the first time in U.S. history that a high-rise commercial office structure has attained LEED’s highest green building rating. 
The Bank of America Tower was certified under the LEED Core & Shell designation. The 55-story, 2.1 million-square-foot building, which was designed by Cook + Fox Architects of New York, uses a high-performance glass curtain wall that lets in maximum sunlight while blocking unwanted heat. The building’s faceted crystal design opens up oblique views and lets more daylight reach the street.
The $1 billion tower is powered by a 4.6-megawatt on-site cogeneration plant, which works in conjunction with an ice-storage system to reduce the building’s peak energy demands. The cooling system uses melting ice to help reduce the building temperature during peak loads.
The tower captures and reuses rainwater and gray water, using the recycled water in conjunction with waterless urinals and low-flow fixtures to save an estimated 10.3 million gallons of water annually.
A large percentage of the building’s materials came from recycled or local sources within 500 miles of the building site. The structure’s concrete portions consist of 45 percent slag, a smelting byproduct, and 55 percent concrete. An under-floor air delivery system allows for individual control of heating and cooling and provides clean filtered outside air in.
New public amenities around the base of the structure include a mid-block pedestrian passage known as Anita’s Way and an urban garden room, which acts as a front porch by providing public space and a sheltered extension of Bryant Park. The project includes the newly opened Stephen Sondheim Theatre, which was originally built as Henry Miller’s Theatre in 1918. Approximately 50,000 square-feet of the theater was reconstructed.
The 1,200-foot tower, which held its official gala opening May 20, is the fourth-tallest building in the United States. Construction began on the Bank of America Tower in 2004, and the tower was first occupied in 2008. The developer for the building is the Durst Organization of New York City; the construction manager for the project was Tishman Construction of New York City.
The Bank of America tower is the winner of a number of design awards, including the 2010 Diamond Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York and the "Project of the Year" award from the Society of American Registered Architects.