FLOW Chelsea

Overview

FLOW Chelsea is a new 24-story high-rise apartment building – at 211 West 29th Street in Midtown Manhattan – that is both Passive House Institute certified and a recipient of the NYSERDA Buildings of Excellence Award. The project includes 55 residential units situated above a ground floor retail space. As FLOW Chelsea was designed to meet the rigorous “PassiveHaus” standard – the most stringent energy efficiency program available – it includes high performance envelope components such as triple-glazed windows as well as high-efficiency HVAC systems and LED lighting. FLOW Chelsea also implemented extensive air sealing to maximize building tightness.  

ReVireo’s role in the project was to demonstrate the building’s compliance with the Federal 179D Commercial Buildings Energy-Efficiency Tax Deduction. Qualifying for the full $1.80 per square foot tax deduction requires demonstrating reduced energy and power usage by at least 50% when compared to the ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007 construction baseline. ReVireo completed comprehensive energy modeling of the as-built conditions to illustrate the building’s energy savings, as well as completed on-site inspections to ensure that systems were installed as designed. Ultimately ReVireo was able to explicitly demonstrate the required savings, allowing Bernstein Real Estate to claim the full $1.80 per square foot tax deduction.