JNY Capital and United Hoisting Company have unveiled plans for a 425,000 s/f Long Island City tower that will be the largest speculative Passive House office development in the US.
Located at 38-42 12 Street, the 11-story building will be called The Oasis and is targeting biotech, life sciences, media, engineering, commercial office and retail tenants.
“We are incredibly excited to bring to market a building that is a game-changer for the future of the city,” said JNY’s Capital Vice President Moshe Pinsky. “We have created an eco-conscious building that offers a safer and healthier office environment for workers to return to and a benchmark for sustainability and innovation.”
Passive House is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building’s ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling.
The state-of-the-art development is expected to break ground by the third quarter of 2021 and should be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2022. Asking office rents will be in $40-$50 per square foot range – less than half of comparable space in Manhattan.
The Oasis will feature 343,500 s/f of office space, 50,000 s/f floor plates, 17,000 s/f of rooftop bar or restaurant, 30,700 s/f of event space, and 34,700 s/f of ground-floor retail. It will also feature 30,000 s/f of terrace and exterior green space, dispersed throughout each floor along with on-site parking for more than 650 cars.
“The overall scale of the project, with an excess of 50,000 s/f floor plans and open green space enabling social distancing, are extremely unique to the area,” Pinsky said.
“As offices begin to repopulate in the wake of COVID-19, the Oasis’ large open floor plates, passive house construction and generous outdoor green spaces offer a paradigm shift for office space that will be attractive for companies that want to entice workers away from their working from home setups,” added Nick Liberis of Archimaera, the Brooklyn-based architectural firm designing the Oasis.
According to Archimaera, the Oasis will be organized around a central court to maximize exposure to natural light on all floors and feature a ventilation system proven to reduce the spread of airborne contaminants by combining outside fresh air with a low velocity airflow within the space.
Buildings that meet the Passive House standards use about 40-60 percent less energy for space conditioning than conventional buildings.
Other sustainable design and construction and features include a super-insulated building exterior; solar panels, a green roofing system, LED lighting fixtures, state-of-the art high efficiency triple pane glazed windows; HVAC system with a dedicated outside air system (DOAS) which draws a constant, fresh air-flow from the outside-in; High efficiency mechanical system, and a building wide system of sensors to fine tune heating and cooling delivery on demand; High floor to ceiling windows 18 to 24 ft high from ground through 4th floors; Triple height lobby connecting 11th and 12th Streets; Natural light flooded & naturally ventilated office spaces in all parts of the building; Oversized stairwell encourages an alternative to the elevator.
It was back in March 2020 when the co-developers, JNY Capital and United Hoisting Company announced plans to develop the site in a $32.5 million joint venture.
United Hoisting, one of the biggest suppliers of scaffolding and sidewalk sheds in the city, owned the 1.5-acre site since 1979, when they relocated from New Jersey.
“This project will be transformative to Long Island City in the same way the massive City Point Development was to Downtown Brooklyn,” said United Hoisting’s Joe Covello.
Lee & Associates NYC has been retained as the exclusive broker to market The Oasis. The Lee & Associates NYC team consists of Mitchell Salmon, executive managing director, Corey J. Abdo, executive managing director & principal, Catherine O’Toole, executive managing director & principal and Stephanie Moore, managing director.
