The Move for Bike Rooms in NYC Office Buildings

An article from the New York Times, A Room of Their Own for 2-Wheeled Commuters, examines the recent move by some building landlords to establish bicycle rooms for their tenants, and the related benefits and limits of offering the ammenity. The article used 345 Hudson Street in New York as an example, where the property manager says that the bike room they built in its storage space in 2008 is "always packed". "We have 35, 40 bicycles there a day," said Alfonse Amore, vice president for property management for the building's landlord, Trinity Real Estate.

Regulations established by the New York City Department of Transportation on December 11, 2009 requires commercial office buildings with at least one freight elevator to implement and post a Bicycle Access Plan that allows the tenant's employees to bring bikes into the tenant's office space. "The law doesn't require bike rooms," explained Noah Budnick, the deputy director of the nonprofit Transportation Alternatives. "The law just requires that the buildings let the people get their bikes from the street to their office. We're hearing more and more that this is a selling point for the real estate industry. You're seeing office spaces marketed with bike rooms, which is pretty awesome."

But, notes the article, one thing may be preventing landlords from building even more bike rooms: showers. An excerpt:

In new office buildings, the U.S. Green Building Council, which certifies buildings as LEED-compliant, awards points only for bike rooms with showers and changing rooms. And in existing buildings, bike rooms also do not automatically earn LEED points because they are based on behavioral changes in tenants — for instance, if a tenant allows employees to telecommute or if a landlord puts in a bike room that gets heavy use. LEED certification, shorthand for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is important to landlords because it tells the public, and investors, that their buildings save energy.

The building council's requirement that new buildings have showers, which can be costly to install and take up more space, is a sticking point for some New York landlords. While a rinse may be necessary for riders pedaling 10 miles to a suburban office park, landlords say, Manhattan employees coming from, say, Park Slope in Brooklyn, usually won't work up much of a sweat.

"You have a lot of buildings here which would like to get LEED points," said Eric Gural, an executive managing director of Newmark Knight Frank who oversees the 1,000-square-foot bike room at 520 Eighth Avenue. "If we didn't have to put a shower in, I think you'd see a lot more bike rooms that would be provided by landlords."

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