Bank of America Tower (New York)

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This article contains information about a building currently under construction. It may contain information of a speculative nature, and the content may change dramatically and frequently as construction progresses and new information becomes available.

Bank of America Tower
Future Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park
Information
Location	New York City, New York, USA
Coordinates	40°45′19″N 73°59′03″W / 40.75528, -73.98417
Status	Under construction (Topped out)
Groundbreaking	2004
Opening	2008
Use	Office
Height
Antenna/Spire	366 m(1,200 ft)
Roof	287.9 m(944.5 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	54
Floor area	2,100,000 sq ft (195,000 m²) (195,000 m²)
Elevator count	53[1]
Cost	$1,000,000,000
Companies
Architect	Cook+Fox Architects
Structural Engineer	Severud Associates
Contractor	Tishman Construction Corporation
Developer	Durst Organization, Bank of America

The Bank of America Tower under construction in October 2007.

The Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park in New York City is a $1 billion skyscraper project currently undergoing construction, on the west side of Sixth Avenue, between 42nd and 43rd Street, opposite Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. It has been designed by Cook+Fox Architects to be one of the most highly efficient and ecologically friendly buildings in the world. Construction is expected to be complete in 2008. As its name indicates, Bank of America will be its anchor tenant.

The tower reached its maximum height of 1200 ft (366 m) on December 15, 2007 when the final portion of the spire was put in place. It is now officially the second tallest building in New York City and the 3rd in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Details

The tower has an architectural spire that is 1200 ft (366 m) tall. The building will be 54 stories high and will have approximately 2.1 million square feet (195,000 m²) of office space. Upon the placement of its spire in December 2007, the tower has become the second tallest building in New York City, after the Empire State Building. The building will have three escalators and a total of 53 elevators – 52 to serve the offices and one leading to the transit mezzanine below ground.^[1]

Several buildings were demolished to make way for the Bank of America Tower, the tallest being the Remington Rand Building.

[edit] Environmental features

Bank of America Tower construction site, as seen from the corner of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue. July 10, 2006.

Building site of Bank of America Tower, seen from Bryant Park

The design of the building will make it environmentally friendly, using technologies such as floor-to-ceiling insulating glass to contain heat and maximize natural light, and an automatic daylight dimming system. The tower also features a greywater system, which captures rainwater and reuses it. Bank of America also states that the building will be made largely of recycled and recyclable materials.^[2] Air entering the building will be filtered, as is common, but the air exhausted will be cleaned as well, making the tower a giant air filter for Midtown Manhattan.^[3] Bank of America Tower is the first skyscraper designed to attain a Platinum LEED Certification.^[2]

The Bank of America tower is constructed using a concrete manufactured with slag, a byproduct of blast furnaces. The mixture used in the tower concrete is 55% cement and 45% slag. The use of slag cement reduces damage to the environment by decreasing the amount of cement needed for the building, which in turn lowers the amount of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas produced through normal cement manufacturing. (One ton of cement produced emits about one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.)^[4]

Control of the temperature of Bank of America's tower, and the production of some of its energy, will be done in an environmentally-friendly manner. Insulating glass will reduce thermal loss somewhat, which will lower energy consumption and increase transparency. Carbon dioxide sensors will signal increased fresh air ventilation, when elevated levels of carbon dioxide are detected in the building.

The cooling system will produce and store ice during off-peak hours, and then use ice phase transition to help cool the building during peak load, similar to the ice batteries in the 1995 Hotel New Otani in Tokyo Japan.^[5] Ice batteries have been used since absorption chillers first made ice commercially 150 years ago, before the electric light bulb was invented.^[6]

The tower has a 4.6-megawatt cogeneration plant, which will provide part of the base-load energy requirements. Onsite power generation reduces the significant electrical transmission losses that are typical of central power production plants.

[edit] Height

Height comparison of buildings in NYC.

When comparing building height, only the structural height is used, according to rules and regulations of the World Council on Tall Buildings.^[7] It is debatable as to whether what is being called an "architectural spire"^[8] will count towards the structural height. Currently, the New York Times Building and the Chrysler Building are tied for the position of the third tallest buildings in New York City. Comparing the Bank of America Tower to the Chrysler Building, it seems as though the Chrysler Building is shorter when considering two factors:

A formal ruling by the World Council on Tall Buildings has yet to be released.

[edit] Crane incident

At around 1 p.m. on October 17, 2007, a construction container fell from a crane at the Bank of America tower, causing damage to the tower and injuring eight people.^[9] The container broke windows on several floors of the building, spraying debris that rained down on the streets below. The eight people suffered cuts and bruises. The Buildings Department temporarily stopped construction at the site.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Bank of America press release on the tower
• The Durst Organization press release on the tower
• Cook+Fox Architects
• Emporis entry
• Wirednewyork.com site photos
• The Site Selection report on the tower