Urban Green Council Releases Green Construction Cost Study for NYC

We thought our readers would be interested in the Urban Green Council’s new report “Cost of Green in New York City.”     Urban Green Council recognized a need to study the cost premium of green construction in NYC.  As they note, advocates often argue that green cost premiums are small, but that detailed research in our specific marketplace was needed.  Urban Green Council received funding assistance from NYSERDA and engaged Davis Langdon to conduct a data-based study of the cost of building green in the City. 107 recent projects were studied in 2008 – 63 were either pursuing or had achieved LEED certification. These projects were evaluated as a group, and construction costs for two subsets were analyzed statistically: high-rise residences (38 projects) and office interiors (25 projects). There were two major findings:

• The Cost of Green in New York City found no significant difference in the cost per square foot between green and non-green buildings, based on analysis of luxury high-rise residential and commercial interiors projects.
• In analyzing the data, the study also discovered that New York City LEED projects exhibit similar patterns of LEED credit achievement; certain credits are commonly achieved and others are rarely pursued.

This timely report also considers cost implications not only green construction, but all construction. You can read the executive summary, or download the whole report if you’re a member here.