- Green Building News
- Posts
- The Greenest Building Is the One Already Standing
The Greenest Building Is the One Already Standing
Charlie Cichetti
June 21, 2026
Smart strategies. Sharp stories. Sustainability that sticks.
📬 Intro: Knock It Down, or Keep It
Summer starts this weekend, so here is a riddle for the cookout: what is the greenest building you will see all year? Not the shiny new net-zero tower. It is the dingy old one already standing.
Reuse keeps the carbon you already spent locked in the walls. New construction accrues it all over again, up front, before a single person moves in. And this year, the math got impossible to argue with.
🌍 Field Notes: Keep the Frame, Keep the Carbon
♻ The 77% Number
RMI and Skanska studied Kincaid Hall at the University of Washington, a 1971 building headed for either renovation or the wrecking ball.
Renovating instead of rebuilding avoided about 2,179 tonnes of CO2, a 77% reduction compared to new construction, and came in 46% under the cost of building new. Skipping structural demolition alone saved roughly 240,000 gallons of water. Keep the frame and you keep three quarters of the carbon, free.
🏢 796 Apartments, One 1913 Tower
61 Broadway is the 1913 Adams Express Building in Manhattan's Financial District, a 32-story tower whose office occupancy had collapsed.
RXR is converting it into 796 apartments inside a 1913 office building, backed by a $420 million loan, with about 200 units reserved at 80% of area median income. First residents are projected for 2028. A 1913 tower that sat half empty as offices will hold 796 households by then.
📊 The Empty Office Became Inventory
The market caught up to the carbon case fast.
US office-to-apartment conversions hit 90,300 units in the 2026 pipeline, up 28% in a year and nearly four times the 2022 total, with office vacancy still near 20%. Conversions now make up about 47% of every adaptive-reuse apartment project in the country. About $213 billion in office loans come due by 2026, and owners are running out of reasons to wait. With vacancy near 20%, those empty floors are the cheapest housing pipeline in the country.
A MESSAGE FROM BUILDINGPLAQUES.COM
Using buildingplaques.com online Plaque Designer, you can quickly and easily design and order customized LEED recognition plaques that features the details of your specific LEED certified project.
Our architectural grade anodized aluminum signs are available in multiple sizes, and identify the elements of your design that earn LEED certification and acknowledge key project members, all while being less expensive than comparable LEED recognition plaque options.
Ready to create your own LEED recognition plaque?
🏛 Built to Last
Demolition feels decisive. It is also the most expensive carbon decision in the project, paid before the first tenant arrives. Concrete and steel carry most of a building's embodied carbon, and a wrecking ball throws both in a dumpster. Kincaid Hall kept 96% of its concrete carbon and 83% of its steel just by staying upright.
Cheap to keep, expensive to replace. More than 1.9 billion square feet of US office space sits rated suitable for conversion right now. Renovation keeps the existing foundations and structure, where the heaviest carbon and cost both sit.
Takeaways by Role:
♻ Owners: Reuse can run 40 to 46% cheaper than new build on the right structure. Run the comparison before you call the demolition crew.
🏢 Architects: Concrete and steel are where the embodied carbon hides. Keeping the frame keeps most of it.
📋 Developers: 467-m abatements and historic tax credits are turning stranded offices into financeable housing.
💧Sustainability leads: The lowest-carbon square foot is the one already built.
💬 Quote of the Week
“We spent a decade optimizing the energy a building uses. The next decade is about the carbon already baked into the buildings we have. Reuse is where that fight gets won.”
— Charlie Cichetti, CEO of Skema and LEED Fellow
🧠 TL;DR
Reusing a building can cut embodied carbon by 77% and cost by nearly half versus new construction. With office vacancy near 20%, the empty tower is the cheapest housing supply around.
🧰 Action Step
Before you greenlight a teardown, ask for one number: the embodied carbon of demolition plus new build versus a deep retrofit. If nobody can produce it, that is your answer. Get the comparison run.
🧱RETROFIT THIS
🔧TOOLS DOWN
Good bones. Dated lobby. Half-empty. The whole room votes to tear it down.
But three-quarters of the carbon is already paid, sitting right there in the walls.
The boldest thing on the table is to leave them standing.
Limited Sponsorship Opportunities Available
Green Building Matters Podcast is now exploring a select number of brand partnerships with organizations aligned with the future of sustainable building.
Reach the professionals shaping the industry—and do it with intention.
✍️ Brian Bollinger, our Head Writer, helps sustainability professionals connect performance, workflow, and real-world results.
🌍️ Charlie Cichetti, our Fearless Leader and CEO of Skema and LEED Fellow, has guided more than 150,000 professionals as building practice continues to evolve.
Let’s Green Up together.
👉 [Explore Sustainability Credentials at GBES.com]
👉 [See what Skema’s building for architects]
👉 [Book a Waste2Zero audit before your next ESG deadline]
Are you excited to read next week's newsletter? |