View Smart Windows Selected for Renovation of 111 Wall Street, a Reimagined Office Tower in Manhattan’s Financial District
NEW YORK, New York and MILPITAS, Calif., June 21, 2021 – View, Inc. (Nasdaq: VIEW) (“View”), the market leader in smart glass, announced its smart windows will be installed at 111 Wall Street, a 25-story, 1.2 million-square-foot waterfront office tower in Manhattan’s Financial District, currently undergoing an extensive transformation by Nightingale Properties and Wafra Capital Partners.
Nightingale Properties and Wafra Capital Partners are repositioning 111 Wall Street into a Class-A downtown New York City office asset through a redevelopment program that includes a full exterior renovation and infrastructure overhaul. View Smart Windows, which use artificial intelligence to optimize natural light and views of the outdoors while minimizing heat and glare, will serve as a key amenity to attract tenants focused on employee comfort and wellness in a post-pandemic office environment. View Smart Windows are designed to make buildings healthier, smarter, and more energy efficient, a critical differentiator in asset renovations which ultimately benefits a landlord’s bottom line.
The new smart windows will provide tenants with unobstructed views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines, New York Harbor and the East River, while also reducing energy consumption at the property. In addition, the installation at 111 Wall Street will feature View Immersive Display, which allows tenants to transform their smart windows into transparent, high-definition displays for interactive remote collaboration, internet browsing, entertainment, and more.
111 Wall Street is also the first property to receive funding through New York City’s recently launched C-PACE program, a financing structure that supports energy efficiency improvements. The C-PACE financing will help fund the building renovations and allow ownership to comply with the city’s new environmental regulations.
“We are focused on creating a safe and secure office space that will put employees returning to work at ease,” said Michael Gontar, Chief Investment Officer with Wafra Capital Partners. “With its numerous health and wellness benefits, incorporating View Smart Windows into the reimagined 111 Wall Street was an obvious choice.”
Smart glass offers significant health advantages by reducing the incidence of eyestrain and headaches by over 50%. In a recent study, employees working next to View Smart Windows improved their sleep by 37 minutes per night and cognitive function by 42 percent. Research also shows that buildings designed to increase access to natural light yield 5%-6% higher rents.
“The future of buildings is experiential, sustainable, healthy, and smart,” said Dr. Rao Mulpuri, Chairman and CEO of View. “For every new building built, there are over 100 existing buildings and there is a tremendous opportunity to upgrade and reposition these buildings for the 21st century. View is excited to help Nightingale Properties and Wafra Capital Partners reposition 111 Wall Street.”
The well-located 111 Wall Street, which was previously fully leased to Citigroup and known as the Citibank Building, occupies an entire city block between Wall Street and Gouverneur Lane and sits adjacent to Wall Street/Pier 11, as well as numerous subway lines and the Wall Street Heliport. Additional renovations to the property include a new curtain wall, floor-to-ceiling windows, a renovated lobby, and other amenities, including a 125-seat conference center, event space, a bike and scooter charging room, and a fitness center known as 111 WELL. Studios Architecture is overseeing the redesign for 111 Wall Street and Hunter Roberts is managing the construction and renovation work.
About View
View is a smart building platform company and the market leader in dynamic windows. View’s windows use artificial intelligence to automatically adjust in response to the sun and increase access to natural light, acting as a digital skin for smart buildings that improve occupant health and reduce energy consumption to mitigate the effects of climate change. Every View installation includes a cloud-connected smart building platform that enables groundbreaking applications to optimize building temperature and air quality, provide superior indoor cellular coverage, improve building security, and facilitate collaboration. View is designed into 75 million square feet of buildings including offices, hospitals, airports, educational facilities, hotels and multi-family residences. For more information, please visit: www.view.com.
About Nightingale Properties
Led by CEO Elie Schwartz, Nightingale Properties pursues real estate investments across the capital stack, and spanning all risk-return profiles, geographies, asset classes, hold periods, deal sizes, and development potential. Nightingale is regarded in the industry as one of the most agile, creative, and operationally savvy institutional-grade owner-operators. By leveraging its vertically integrated and white-glove Property Management, Asset Management, Construction Management, and Development divisions, Nightingale creates value in its properties and for its joint venture and institutional equity partners.
About Wafra Capital Partners
Wafra Capital Partners (“WCP”), a New York-based investment management firm, manages or advises funds and accounts (principally on a Shari’a-compliant basis) that specialize in asset-based finance and real estate investments. WCP has significant experience with real estate and real estate debt, structured finance, venture debt, equipment leasing and finance, transportation finance, and other specialty finance transactions, and its team has been operating in these arenas since 1999.
