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RE: The Process of Designing Our Hybrid Farm Apartment Building on the High Line in NYC
Really wonderful piece, @design-guy. And a really beautiful project! I was hoping to learn a little more about the economic and environmental impact of the project. Could this building compete on the real estate market? How much of carbon would it save?
In all honesty, the up front costs for the building would be high, but long term costs would be low because of energy efficiency and the materials used like the high performing ETFE insulating facade. This design is meant to be kind of a show piece for the urban farming community and because of the location in Chelsea the rents would be very high per square foot. To offset the costs, the building itself could generate income from the CSA program. Most buildings with incredibly different spaces and features like the art gallery, the farm views and interesting form can bring in a much higher purchase or rent price, so instead of say $2,000 psf for a new luxury residential building in Manhattan, a building like this would have to bring in about $2,500 psf or more to offset the square footage lost to farm space. A bigger concept is that if the farm provided the local community with more efficient and healthier access to food there may be building code changes to offer benefits to developers looking to include this kind of public space and farm in urban centers. This would most likely result in higher height limits and an adjustment to the building FAR overall.
Thanks for the detailed response @design-guy! Agreed that there'd have to be several ways to measure impact and gauge success, including (of course) the traditional bottom line. Especially for a demonstration project such as this.