The Long Dock Beacon Hotel and Executive Conference Center
Green/Sustainable Features

Summary

The goal for the Long Dock project is to create a model of harmonies for the guest. The focus will be on human-centered sustainable design that emphasizes warmth and comfort for each guest and visitor. The room and conference facilities will accomplish this with a style of elegant simplicity. Long Dock will be a facility where everyone can feel and participate in the sensuousness of the Hudson River and the Hudson Region. Through the monumental efforts of many enlightened groups, the river is being reborn. It is clean again, the waterfronts up and down the river are being revitalized. Long Dock bears witness to this renewal and it will become an intrinsic part of the guest experience.

LDB is planned to have the healthiest interior environment, lowest impact site and layout and best energy conserving design of any newly developed hotel including:

1. Geothermally powered fresh air-based heating and cooling system strategies
2. Material choices for interior finishes, fabrics and furniture that do not contribute to chemical off-gassing
3. Recycling and Re-Use strategies throughout the construction period.
4. Mechanical systems selected for their energy conservation design
5. High performance building envelope including the correct placement of glass for passive heating and cooling
6. Advanced controls for individual space comfort.
7. Restorative landscape strategies to clean storm run-off and reduce water consumption.
8. Landscaping based on native and regional species that require minimum irrigation.
9. Other green/sustainable features include building orientation, day lighting, use of overhangs and sun-shields to manage daylighting in summer, use of a vegetated (or “green”) roof, permeable surfacing of parking lots, etc.

The LEED green building rating system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) was launched by the U. S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in 1998.  Today, LEED has grown to become the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.  LEED provides a numerical rating system that guides the design process and distinguishes the completed project by assigning points to areas of verified accomplishment.

The LEED system rates buildings in five categories of green design;

1. Sustainable Sites: Site selection, transportation, storm water, exterior landscape
2. Water Efficiency: Reduced water use both for building exterior and interior
3. Energy & Atmosphere - energy use and generation of pollution
4. Materials & Resources - recycling, local buying, renewable resources and waste management.
5. Indoor Environmental Quality - controlling the overall interior building environment including materials, light and heating and ventilation.

Each category has a number of possible points for achievement in that sub-area of building design. Depending on the number on points given to the project by the USGBC after an application process in completed, a final score will be determined.  The highest possible number of points is 69.  Within that overall number a project that scores 26-32 points will be Certified, 33-38 points will be Silver, 39-51 points will be Gold and 52-69 points will be Platinum.

The goal for the Long Dock Beacon Hotel and Conference Center is to achieve a LEED Gold rating and this goal is specifically cited as a performance requirement in the Scenic Hudson land lease.         

The Long Dock Beacon Hotel and Executive Conference Center
Green/Sustainable Features

Main Building Green Features

Healthiest interior environment - includes several strategies: Cleanest possible air in heating and cooling system, material choices for interior finishes, fabrics and furniture that do not contribute to chemical off-gassing and green cleaning materials that are free of harmful chemicals
Energy conservation that comes from the choice of HVAC systems, a high performance building envelope, judicious placement of glass for views and passive heating and cooling and advanced controls for individual space comfort.
A site master plan that utilizes a brownfield location, effectively zones the overall land area for commercial and public park activities and uses restorative landscape strategies to clean storm run-off and reduce water consumption
An overall sustainable goal of LEED gold that is built around the above planning principals so as to heighten guest comfort and protect the health of the hotel’s employees (long term) and guests (short term) (LEED gold targets on listed on the attached score sheet starting on page 39)

Guest and Worker Environmental Benefits

Fresh air system, described in more detail below, will be healthy and increase worker productivity. In economic terms, decreasing personnel illness will more that offset an increase in energy cost resulting from the increased volume of fresh air needed to accomplish this benefit.
Interior environment will be chemical free (no Volatile Organic Compounds). This will be accomplished by the choice of interior materials, finishes and fabrics. The use of green cleaning and maintenance products as well as highly filtered HEPA cleaning appliances will further reduce the worker (and guest) exposure to illness causing housekeeping methods.
All building occupants will be protected from potential contamination from chemical pollutants (solvents, disposal products, exhaust fumes) by physical barriers and
completely separate ventilation systems.
All building occupants will have a high degree of control over their thermal, ventilation and lighting systems. By providing individual controls such as thermostats, vents, operable windows and shading devices, occupants will be able to customize the indoor environment to their own preferences.
The building will achieve a high daylight factor of over 75% of all occupied spaces and have direct line of sight to the outdoors in over 90% of all occupied space. Daylight improves productivity and is estimated to reduce lighting energy by 50% to 80%.

Fresh Air Circulation

Long Dock Beacon will focus on a super healthy fresh air system. The amount of conditioned outside air supplied to all occupied spaces will be 175% of the LEED gold standard. The fresh air supplied for most current hotel rooms is very limited. Hotels that rely on thru-wall heating and air conditioning units use recirculated air in the heating and cooling modes. Fresh air is brought in only when the economy or fan-only mode is used. Most current hotels rely on infiltration to provide fresh air, either around the windows or under the door between the room and the corridor. More recent projects and ones complying with current ASHREA codes have an amount of natural ventilation supplied to the room or utilize thru-wall units that provide an increased percentage of outside air. The current code provides 22 cubic per minute (CFM) to a hotel room. To achieve a LEED point for increased ventilation, the required 22 CFM of air would have to be increased to 29 CFM. Long Dock is proposing that 50 CFM be provided which essentially doubles the amount of fresh air being provided to the guest room and all other occupied spaces in the building. The fresh air will be provided to each space by a system of ducts and dampers that control the flow of air on an as-needed basis. The air will be filtered to remove dust and pollen. The heat that would otherwise be lost when the interior air is exhausted will be recovered with a state-of-the-art heat exchanger that can return 75% to 85% of the heat to the fresh air duct loop. Providing conditioned and filtered fresh air increases guest comfort, continually purges the occupied spaces of indoor air pollutants and adds significantly to worker productivity and health.

Green features of Long Dock Beacon
The overall project goals that will position Long Dock as the leader par excellence, will target sustainable achievement in site design, in water and sewer use, in the building’s energy use, in building materials that affect the occupants’ health as well as light, air, temperature and safety. The following is a partial list of the most important sustainable strategies for the project:

• East/west orientation to take advantage of passive solar heating, natural light, best views and natural ventilation.
• Maximum window area on north and south sides to take advantage of above.
• Screening and set-backs used as shading will minimize the summer heat gain on the south windows.
• Compact building footprint to minimize impact on the site.
• All storm water will be collected, stored and regenerated onsite, minimizing the impact on the City’s storm water system.
• Parking lots will be paved with permeable materials to allow storm water to percolate through to the ground below.
• Bio-swales will treat storm water and remove particulates before the water is allowed to filter back to the site.
• Native planting will predominate, supporting the river wildlife and not requiring a permanent irrigation system.
• A green vegetated roof will absorb rain water, insulate the building, minimize the heat island affect from dark roofs and prolong the life to the underlying waterproof roof membrane.
• A highly efficient heating and cooling system will save 30 to 40% of the annual energy costs of the hotel and conference center.
• Solar photovoltaic panels and/or micro wind turbines will generate electricity and lower the building’s energy consumption.
• Skylights bringing natural light in the corridors will reduce the need for artificial lighting.
• The high performance, highly insulated building envelope will reduce the heating and cooling load substantially.
• Low water use plumbing fixtures in the guest rooms and public spaces will save water use.
• All room heating, cooling and electricity will be shut down by built-in heat and motion sensors when the room is unoccupied by the room occupants.
• A ducted fresh air system will allow each guest room an optimally fresh air flow on a four-season basis.
• Non toxic materials used throughout will contribute to an allergy free, clean air interior environment.
• Wood used in the building will come from certified Forests that are sustainably managed.

Operational features

• Bulk dispensers in the rooms will eliminate packaging and waste that must be disposed of in local landfills.
• Rooms will be cleaned with products that are free of harmful chemicals.
• Rooms will be cleaned with vacuum cleaners equipped with HEPA filters to avoid recirculating dust and bacteria.
• Biodegradable detergents will be used for all laundry operations.
• Fabrics will be chosen for all interior uses that can be recycled or composted when they wear out.
• Furniture will be constructed from materials that emit no v.o.c’s (volatile organic compounds).
• Alternative fuel vehicles will be used for shuttling guests to the train and to local points of interest.

The Long Dock Beacon Hotel and Executive Conference Center
Transportation Strategy

LDB design and programmatic initiatives will encourage guests and employees to come to Long Dock Beacon by train.  There are 42 trains per day between Beacon and New York City.

Pathways leading from the train station to the Hotel and Scenic Hudson Park will allow guests to walk the five minutes to the Hotel or hop on the hotel shuttles which will meet every train.

Guests and Employees will be offered promotional travel incentives to use the train or Ferry.

Metro North already offers shared Zip Cars with preferred parking to train passengers, and LDB will have a fleet of hourly rental vehicles available for guest leasing.

Train schedule information will be posted on the LDB Hotel cable system, as well as on monitors in public places such as at reception, food venues and outdoor by the snack shack.

Under a partnership agreement being negotiated between LDB and Metro North, LDB guests will use Metro-North Rail Station parking areas when commuter spaces would otherwise be idle. This is an important land use strength of the project, as well as a significant commercial benefit: Statistics indicate that the 900-space Beacon Train Station parking lot is 50% vacant after arrival of the first express train from NYC at 6 PM. This means that the extra spaces needed for overflow parking from the hotel-conference-restaurant patrons during its heaviest time (weekday evenings and weekends) will be accommodated off-site without devoting precious park land to same.