New York Construction Report staff writer
New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has launched a year-long pilot of the Circular Construction Hub at MADE Bush Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The hub will be operated by Our Temenos, a Brooklyn-based ecological landscaping firm, and will focus on the recovery, storage, sorting, and redistribution of construction materials to reduce waste, extend material lifecycles, and generate real-world data on the feasibility of reuse-oriented construction supply chains within New York City.
The initiative will guide future efforts to scale programmatic investments supporting the implementation of circular construction practices citywide, advancing both climate goals and the continued growth of the green economy.
“Right now, when a construction site in our city tears something out, most of it ends up in a landfill, even when it can still be used,” said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “This pilot is about changing that. We’re going to recover those materials at MADE Bush Terminal, store them and put them back to work.
“We own this land, and we have a responsibility to use it to test what’s possible at a larger scale.”
If it works, officials say the initiative will cut waste, lower costs and make better use of construction materials.
“As landscape contractors with experience building residential and public green spaces, we had a keen awareness as to why salvage and surplus material use wasn’t scaling. It is part of our work as green infrastructure professionals to solve everyday problems, so we turned that lens back on the supply chain!” said Our Temenos and Circular Construction Hub Founder Rosemarie Miner. “Small construction businesses face a lot of challenges with market volatility and losses from climate change, whether that’s weather-related delays or unpredictable supply chains.
“We are building a hyperlocal resource to strengthen our local community and support the people that build it.”
The partnership between NYCEDC and Our Temenos to pilot the new hub evolved from an “Ideas for Impact” Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) submission—marking the first award of its kind. The “Ideas for Impact” RFEI is an open solicitation, inviting nonprofits, startups, academic institutions, community organizations, and other mission-aligned entities to propose innovative partnership opportunities that advance NYCEDC’s economic development priorities.
Our Temenos is a Brooklyn-based, certified M/WBE ecological landscaping firm that focuses on habitat restoration, low–waste landscape design and operations, and material reuse initiatives.
“AIA New York commends NYCEDC for their continued leadership advancing our city’s circular economy,” Jesse Lazar, executive director of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter, said in a statement. “The Circular Construction Reuse Hub serves as a critical asset, simulating innovation and bolstering the green economy, by unlocking opportunities to treat existing buildings and materials as valuable resources to be repurposed.
This pilot will build out the type of physical infrastructure necessary to support material reuse at scale, a recommendation detailed in the New York Embodied Carbon Action Plan, a tangible roadmap developed by industry experts to strategically reduce embodied carbon emissions in the built environment and create green jobs.”
