Capital Projects & Infrastructure Using power and technology to deliver resilience in Hudson Yards

Hudson Yards is a 28-acre, mixed-use neighborhood on the of . Outfitting it with sustainable power and technology solutions was no easy feat—but well worth the effort.

by Jay Cross

Photo courtesty of Related Hudson Yards

March 2019 Real-estate developers have a responsibility to project that climate change, cyberterrorism, and create resilient and environmentally sustainable an aging utility infrastructure will increase the buildings that not only enhance the cities in which frequency of these occurrences. Accordingly, we they are built but also safeguard their inhabitants had one burning question: What would happen to from unknown environmental and social futures. the many thousands of employees, residents, and Such socially responsible urban development is visitors of Hudson Yards if City’s power not simply good practice—it’s good business. The grid failed? validity of that maxim is evident in Hudson Yards, our just-now-opening major project on Manhattan’s From the outset, providing large commercial far west side. This building complex will ultimately tenants with auxiliary on-site power to support include 18 million square feet of development business continuity during an extended power over seven city blocks and is the largest private outage was both a priority and a proposed point of real-estate development in since differentiation for the development. Natural gas– Rockefeller Center. fired cogeneration—or “cogen,” the simultaneous generation of power and useful heat—is the clear Early in the planning process, our development choice for providing that auxiliary power source. team considered the enormous task of building Cogen is twice as efficient as utility-scale power a project of this scale: 28 acres of mixed-used generation because it not only generates electricity development, to be constructed largely above but also uses the heat byproduct to produce hot the Rail Road’s active West Side Yard. and chilled water that buildings can then use. Such Almost immediately, we recognized that in addition on-site generation also avoids the transmission to the standard zoning, financing, and construction and distribution losses associated with utility-scale challenges developers face in most projects, we had generation. to deal with two other extraordinary considerations. First, the need to bring half the project online at Nearly every Eastern Rail Yard (ERY) building was roughly the same time—an infrastructure test for planned with the intention of installing cogen to help any city, let alone one as mature as New York. And meet high-level LEED requirements. But the plants second, the need to attract commercial tenants, would have been small because each building’s retailers, restaurateurs, and residents to a relatively individual demand for hot and chilled water varies remote area of Manhattan notably lacking in all greatly over the course of the day or week. So, we four. By resolving the first problem with a focus on consolidated the power and thermal demands resilience and sustainability, we made significant of the buildings, establishing a microgrid and steps toward solving the second. connecting the buildings to a thermal loop. We also established one larger plant instead of four smaller ones, making more than four times as much cogen Developing a sustainable approach capacity economically rational. This single-plant We were determined that the Hudson Yards solution capitalizes on the mixed-used program of platform, buildings, and other structures be Hudson Yards: commercial buildings peak in the resilient, sustainable, and technologically advanced. afternoon, residential buildings peak in the morning Moreover, such lofty goals had to be accomplished and evening, and the retail and cultural facilities are in commercially and economically sustainable ways. busiest over the weekend when the commercial Before we could worry about attracting tenants, buildings are nearly empty. we had to consider not only how to sustainably and reliably power the entire development but also how Just as crucially, Related did not have to build out a to bring technology to the space. costly electrical distribution network to effectuate the microgrid. Instead, the cogen plant delivers Power power directly to the Con Edison grid, and Con Since the September 11th attacks, Manhattan has Edison offsets this power from the ERY buildings’ experienced several blackouts, and energy experts electricity bills. In the event that Con Edison’s

2 Using power and technology to deliver resilience in Hudson Yards grid fails, breakers open to isolate Hudson Yards platform fed by a unified fiber-optic network running from the rest of the grid, and cogen power will be up buildings and around the campus. delivered directly to the buildings. Over time, we expect the benefits of this converged All told, our 13.3-MW cogen plant, thermal loop, network to be myriad. Chief among those benefits and Con Edison interconnection cost nearly $200 are ongoing data-based insights about humans million. To recoup some of this cost, Hudson Yards and machines; integrated outcomes across sells various forms of power to the ERY buildings campus, including frictionless building entry for and tenants through a subsidiary set up for its power tenants and visitors; and sizable cost-savings and business. This setup allows Hudson Yards to cover revenue opportunities. Furthermore, some of those ongoing operating costs and the facilities’ mortgage opportunities include advertising and sponsorship payments and comes with a binding commitment revenue across screens, from residential tenant that rates will be no higher than they would be if the smart-home apps to dozens of wayfinding and microgrid did not exist. informational kiosks and vitrines that dot our campus. Technology Our approach to power generation greatly influenced our approach to technology, including security, turnstiles, elevators, building-management To be sure, much of these hoped-for outcomes from systems, access control systems, telephone, and our technology and power investments are just that: Wi-Fi. We believed it was both socially responsible hopes. But this strategy, while ambitious, has not and commercially viable to wire Hudson Yards dissuaded tenants from the highest echelons of the with a focus on data and connectivity—despite a city’s commercial, legal, and financial businesses. $40 million price tag. First, this move was socially The three commercial office buildings at Hudson responsible because cities will ultimately need Yards that are occupied—or soon will be—are for adoption at scale of these kinds of data-producing all intents and purposes fully committed, at rates systems if urban areas are to expand healthily. per square foot among the highest in New York And second, it was commercially viable because it City. A fourth building () in the early will take time before such systems become code, stages of construction is already 50 percent leased. so smart-city investments, at minimum, boost And we’ve experienced similar demand in the one operating efficiencies and ideally generate revenue. residential building open to purchasers, which is 60 percent sold. We realized early on that we were uniquely positioned to attempt to solve the always- Our success in luring tenants strongly suggests nettlesome problem of systems integration. that resilient and sustainable development is both Converging disparate systems generally requires a good for society and good business. Indeed, we spaghetti-work of software and hardware solutions believe that the development community in general to cohere in just one building. Because we were must stop thinking about raising one building at a creating an entire multistructure neighborhood from time and start thinking about how to create blocks, whole cloth, real estate included, we were able to neighborhoods, and cities that can withstand the create a cohesive conversation on a single-software tests of resiliency that are sure to come.

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Jay Cross is president of Related Hudson Yards.

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