Jonathan Rose Companies and Malkin Properties Break Ground on Metro Green Residences At Stamford Transportation Center
October 26, 2010
STAMFORD, CT, October 26 – Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC, a green real estate development, planning, consulting and investment firm, and Malkin Properties, the Malkin family’s real estate arm, held a ground-breaking ceremony today marking the opening of Metro Green Residences, a 50-unit mixed income housing development located one block from the Metro North Stamford Railroad Station, at the corner of Henry Street and Atlantic Street in Stamford, CT.
Metro Green Residences is the second green housing development by the team at Metro Green. Metro Green Apartments, the first phase, achieved the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) New Construction Gold certification and is fully leased. Upon completion, Metro Green, a mixed-use Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), will consist of 238 mixed-income residential units and a 350,000-sq.-ft. Class-A office tower. The overall Metro Green Residential project has received LEED ND Gold Certification for Neighborhood Development.
Stamford Mayor Mike Pavia joined Jonathan F. P. Rose (president of the Jonathan Rose Companies), Peter Malkin and Tony Malkin (chairman and president, respectively, of Malkin Properties), local and elected officials, and community leaders at the groundbreaking ceremony today.
Metro Green Residences is a leading model for transit-oriented, LEED certified, mixed income housing development in the state of Connecticut, developed in a smart-growth location. Designed by Perkins Eastman Architects, the new building is seeking to receive LEED Gold Certification for New Construction.
The project will create a vibrant 24-hour community and provide mixed-income housing to both local residents and commuters, and it represents the future of green design and development in the heart of Stamford’s South End.
In addition to the residential developments, Metro Green will feature a 17-story, “best in class” LEED Platinum candidate office tower to be developed by Malkin Properties. Public amenities, already completed, include a public plaza featuring a rain garden, streetscape with custom light fixtures, and curbside plantings.
Metro Green Residences will consist of a seven-story block-and-plank new construction building, including a diverse mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. Forty of the units will be for reduced income households with incomes ranging from 25% to 60% of Area Median Income, while ten units will be available at market rate. Retail/office space will be available at the ground floor.
Metro Green Residences integrates environmentally responsible features designed to enhance the urban environment, contribute to better health for residents, promote energy efficiency and save residents money. These features include a rainwater harvesting system, a high-performance building envelope, and energy-efficient mechanical systems, as well as green building materials that contain recycled content, and low-VOC components to improve indoor air quality. Public amenities at the project will include an extension of the streetscape improvements completed in the first phase, including custom street light fixtures, new sidewalks, and plantings.
Green features of Metro Green Residences include:
• A rainwater harvesting system that will funnel water from the roof into storage tanks to be used for drip irrigation and filtered for use in washing machines located in the shared laundry room.
• A high performance building envelope characterized by a roof that reduces heat-island effect, high efficiency, operable double hung windows, fiber cement (Hardie Plank) siding and high-performance spray on cellulose insulation.
• Individual heating and cooling units and gas-fired domestic water heaters in each apartment to provide maximum energy efficiencies. The heating and cooling units in each apartment are individually controlled from the residential unit. The high-efficiency, instantaneous, gas-fired domestic water heaters are located in each unit to produce domestic hot water on an as-needed basis.
• Each apartment unit is metered individually for electricity and gas. The use of ENERGY STAR-rated appliances and light fixtures will provide additional savings to residents.
When complete, the larger Metro Green Residential development in its entirety will offer residents an ample courtyard landscaped with sitting areas, active gardening spaces, a meditation labyrinth, structured parking and a pedestrian link to the Stamford Metro North Train Station.
The project will accommodate the burgeoning housing demand for a range of income levels in lower Fairfield County and supply office space demanded by economic growth with the lowest possible environmental impact. The development site is at the Stamford Transportation Center, located within the City of Stamford’s Enterprise Zone.
“We are very excited to see the Metro Green Residential project begin here in Stamford,” said Mayor Michael A. Pavia. “This wonderful project achieves several very important initiatives for Stamford; it will provide much needed affordable housing in an ideal location convenient for commuters, and allows Stamford to remain one of the leading communities in sustainable development. I congratulate Jonathan Rose Companies and Malkin Properties for their continued commitment to the re-emergence of Stamford’s South End.”
“Metro Green Residences will provide a diverse range of affordable and market rate residential units furthering the goals of the development to create a mixed-income, mixed-use community in a smart growth location. Within walking distance of a regional train line and vibrant downtown, the development is a model solution to high energy and transportation costs,” said Mr. Rose. “By locating mixed-income housing in a smart-growth location and designing and building to high quality, green standards, residents will benefit from lower energy and transportation costs for years to come. We thank our development partners at Malkin Properties, Mayor Pavia, the City of Stamford and the resident and community groups of the South End for their ongoing support of this initiative, which will be a model for how communities can develop green, affordable, market-based solutions to the changing climate.”
“This furthers Stamford’s lead as a model for the entire region for smart, sustainable, Transit Oriented Development,” said Anthony Malkin. “Decades ago my father had the vision for this site to be developed as quality and low-impact growth right at this key, regional transit hub. We have been in Stamford at the Transportation Center for decades, and we deepen our relationship with this additional long-term commitment. This groundbreaking celebrates our decades’ long relationship with both the City of Stamford and generations of the Rose family. Malkin Construction is delighted to be the construction manager for the project as well.”
Financing for the $27 million Metro Green Residences project was arranged through low-income housing tax credits from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the City of Stamford, JPMorgan Chase, and First Sterling Financial, Inc. Construction is estimated to finish in 2011.