by Brianna Crandall — September 3, 2012—Mutual of America announced on August 23 that its headquarters at 320 Park Avenue in New York City, the first in the city to gain LEED Silver EB 2.0 certification, has just become one of only nine buildings in the city to have earned LEED-EB:O&M Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.
The 750,000-square-foot Mutual of America building now ranks among the highest-rated buildings in New York, having met the LEED program’s Existing Building or Operations & Maintenance (LEED-EB:O&M) standard. The USGBC recognized the building for achievement in designing and constructing green, energy-efficient and ecologically friendly building environments.
Key enhancements at the 35-floor building, which was reconstructed in 1995 by Swanke Hayden Connell Architects and Turner Construction and is managed by Jones Lang LaSalle for Mutual of America, include:
- Implementation of energy conservation measures including an LED (light-emitting diode) lighting retrofit of the lobby;
- A complete retrofit of the roof lighting to energy-efficient fixtures and bulbs; and
- A 31 percent reduction in water usage over baseline standards.
Mutual of America says that its headquarters was the first existing building in New York City to earn LEED Silver EB 2.0 certification, in April 2009, and has earned the Energy Star label in nine of the past ten years.
Mutual of America has specialized since 1945 in providing retirement products and related services to organizations and their employees, as well as to individuals, to help build and preserve assets for a financially secure future.
