How “The New One” Is Becoming Sustainable, Efficient & Carbon Neutral

1 Old Country Road is a 276,008 square foot, 5 floor tall commercial building located in Carle Place, Long Island. The building has been in operation for over 50 years ever since it was built back in 1969. DBD Realty, the new owners, are thrilled to have the opportunity to go above and beyond bringing 1 Old Country Road to its former class A status. Ownership knew the only way to set a new standard for office space in Nassau County was to turn this building “Green” by upgrading the Building’s Envelope, Lighting & HVAC systems to achieve LEED Certification, become energy-efficient and lower carbon emissions. In addition to the base building upgrades and preventative maintenance of repairing the parking garage, replacing all 6 elevators, installing a new roof system, and upgrading aesthetics throughout the property we plan to increase fresh air flow, UV-light filtration, thermal temperature sensing cameras to detect and minimize potential COVID-19 threats, increasing daylighting for quality of life in the workplace and creating a safer healthier environment.

Q1 – 2021

The next step to transforming 1 Old Country Road into an energy efficient LEED Certified Green building is window replacements. This requires a collaboration between the Architects, Engineers, Design Team, and the LEED consultants. Alteration of the glass façade to double pane windows is a basic energy efficient measure that has been tested on this Energy Model. After simulation, significant reductions in both Cooling and Heating consumption values were observed, which is due to the fact that double-pane windows have a lower Solar Heat Gain Co-efficient (SHGC) and better insulation (U-value).

Q4 – 2020   Making Progress

The next step in transforming 1 Old Country Road is Solar Panels. This building has a large parking garage that is currently being renovated. They are installing 2 MW solar panels on the roof of the parking garage. These panels should be able to offset around 90% of energy for the building. Installing solar panels helps combat greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reduces the buildings dependence on fossil fuel.

Q3 – 2020    It all begins right here

In order to see which measures yield the highest savings, an Energy Model was conducted on the building. The energy efficient measures were simulated individually against the existing building simulation and percentage savings for each was observed and analyzed. One of the measures being implemented is LED Lighting and Sensors. Installing LED lighting and sensors at 1OCR has reduced the LPD using building area method for the building from 1.1 W/sq.ft to 0.85 W/sq.ft. To provide further energy savings for the building, the existing LED fixtures that have high wattages will be replaced with high-efficiency fixtures with low wattages. These measures drastically reduce the area lighting consumption for the building.

All these measures can provide savings for the building while simultaneously reducing GHG Emissions and upgrading the building into a LEED certified energy-efficient and sustainable commercial hub. Check out our “Transforming a Green Building” page to keep up with the latest updates to 1 Old Country Road and follow its evolution to becoming LEED Certified.