BROOKLYN, New York — The 200-by-600-foot property skirting the shoreline in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood is, for the moment, an enormous mud pit. Excavators scoop up whole chunks of earth, making room for concrete piles sprouting rebar strands. All the while, four blue drilling rigs trawl the site on skid-tracked wheels, boring holes into the ground to harvest energy hiding below the surface.
Lendlease, a global construction and real estate firm, and its joint-venture partner Aware Super are transforming the former industrial site at 1 Java Street into a mixed-use development. But unlike most New York City buildings, these ones won’t directly use fossil fuels. Instead, all 834 rental units will meet their heating, cooling and hot-water needs by extracting heat from, or pumping heat into, the ground.
