A rendering of LG Electronics planned 350,000-square-foot North American headquarters complex at 111 Sylvan Ave. in Englewood Cliffs. — Courtesy: LG Electronics
By Joshua Burd
LG Electronics has broken ground on its new North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, a project that is more than seven years in the making after protests, zoning changes and negotiations with residents and conservationist groups.
Company executives gathered Tuesday to celebrate the start of the $300 million construction project, a planned 350,000-square-foot complex at 111 Sylvan Ave. Plans call for a five-story north wing just shy of 70 feet in height and a four-story south wing, a design meant to ease concerns of stakeholders who sought to protect the sweeping views of the Palisades.
The design includes landscape, lighting and other features meant to further reduce visual impacts, while retaining the scale of the complex as home for LG’s growing U.S. business, LG said in a news release. The new corporate campus will allow LG to double its local employment to more than 1,000 by the time project is complete in 2019.
“Englewood Cliffs has been home to LG in the United States for 30 years,” William Cho, CEO of LG Electronics North America, said in a prepared statement, “and now we look ahead to the next 30 years and beyond with a world-class corporate campus that will support LG’s growth and our commitment to being a good corporate citizen focused on the environment.”
The milestone comes some six years after the South Korean electronics giant first proposed the project, which at one point called for a 143-foot-tall building. Backlash and lawsuits filed by both residents and conservationists stalled the project for years, but the impasse was broken in 2015 with a high-profile agreement to keep the project under 70 feet.
At Tuesday’s ceremony, Cho expressed appreciation for the support of conservation groups that recognize that the redesigned building will protect views of Palisades Park. LG struck its deal with groups including Scenic Hudson, the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Natural Resources Defense Council, New Jersey Conservation Foundation and New York-New Jersey Trail Conference.
LG said its new complex will result in an estimated $26 million annually in direct, indirect and induced recurring revenues, including the creation of more than 2,000 construction jobs.
The complex is targeting gold status under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design scale. The design calls for protecting woodlands and six wetlands on the 27-acre site in Englewood Cliffs, where LG will be increasing the green space by 50 percent and planting more than 1,500 trees.
