This year’s GreenLux Awards gave the chic Crosby Street Hotel the distinction of Greenest Luxury Hotel. The Gold LEED-certified hotel features 86 rooms and numerous common spaces, all in the heart of Soho. What makes the Crosby Street Hotel so remarkable is that its architects were able to ingeniously outfit it with sustainable features while working within the unique context of its distinctive Soho location. A mix of classic cast-iron architecture and 21st-century innovation, the street itself is one of the most intriguing in the neighborhood. Just a block from always-bustling Broadway, Crosby Street has managed to hold on to much of its original architectural character while becoming one of the most sought after addresses in the city.
To make the best—and greenest—use of the existing space, the hotel’s designers outfitted the building with landscaped spaces and green roofs, restoring 25% of the site with native and/or adaptive plantings. It’s a remarkably green oasis in the midst of a tightly packed New York City block. A miraculous 61% of the site is considered open space and all landscaping is water efficient, contributing to a 50% reduction in overall usage. Daylight, fresh air and air quality are obvious priorities, as is the use of sustainable materials throughout the building’s construction.
Beyond the numbers, Crosby Street’s green certification is brought to life in ways that are also designed to make a guest’s experience at the hotel exceptionally memorable. Into their regularly changing menu, the kitchen incorporates vegetables from a garden space on the 12th floor of the hotel, rigorously cultivated by the hotel’s head chef. Seasonal produce comes directly from the garden, which is also home to a Tudor-style chicken coop for four Araucana chickens that produce signature blue eggs. It is initiatives like these that earned the Crosby Street Hotel the distinctive title of Greenest Luxury Hotel.
Who would have thought you could feast on hand-picked veggies and freshly gathered blue eggs from heirloom breeds without leaving the confines of Soho’s coolest street? The great minds behind Crosby Street show us that indeed it can be done, and with plenty of style.
