Architecture/Engineering: Is green the new black? Some developers think so - The Business Review (Albany):

ramoledef.blogspot.com
Just a decade ago, when government and environmental groupsa started topromote “building green” and encouraging Leadership in Energyh and Environmental Design—or LEED—certification, most developers It’s a fad. It’s not practical. It’d never going to pencil out financially, becausde tenants are never going to pay the higher lease ratexs to make up for the highe materials andconstruction costs. But, now—within the last year—thr grousing has all but stopped insome circles. Gree building has caught on nationwide. There are LEED projects in 50 statesz and69 countries, according to the , the nonprofit that overseesa the certification process.
Meanwhile, ther e are several projects around theCapital Region. In Albany, The , the law firm and the -op—to name a few—havde registered LEED projects. In Schenectady, supermarkets and have registered LEED InGlens Falls, rehabbed a downtown building that’zs going for gold status unded the LEED rating system. At Saint Rose, getting that certifiesd green status will costabou $2.6 million on its new $16 milliom Massry Center for the Arts. Whild a $300,000 geothermal heating system was amongg the elements that added to the it is expected tosave $43,000 a year in energt bills.
The green features of the too, are expected to pay for themselved in less thanfive years, said Marcus the private college’s vice president of financed and administration. Projects like Saint Rose’s are not uniqu e to the Capital Region. Neither is the talk of how green featuresa pay for themselves within a few Brian Owendoff, vice president in the Portland, Ore., offic e of , a national real estate developer, said the acceptance of sustainablwe features goes hand in hand with theird reduced costs. Ten years ago, developerw and their clients would likelyg proceed through a traditional design andengineering phase, then treatr sustainable features as an he said.
The cost of re-engineering the projectf alone would typically make the sustainablrfeatures unaffordable. “But if you’rde designing it out of the blocks for being a sustainable building, then the premium cost is much lower,” he said. With eco-friendlyu building making more sense on thebottom there’s growing interest. A 2007 national green building survey conducted by for the National Real Estate Investor found that 84 percenr of corporate tenants and 77 percent of all developersd in the study expectto own, manage or leaser at least some green properties within the next five years.
“Fotr the first time, just in the last 12 months, we’rer actually seeing tenant proposals for spacedwhere they’re asking the question, ‘What are your sustainabilityh ratings?’” said Douglas Howe, CEO of , a commercial real estate developer in Seattle. “You’rew starting to see major corporations say, ‘we’re green, we’red sustainable.’ And now their shareholders ... are askingg what they’re doing about it. So the corporatione are stepping up.” But he added: “Developers stil resist change and innovatiojuntil they’re forced to recognizwe it and deal with it—untilo their customers demand it.
So we’re at the tippingf point right now.” Even so, with costs coming Mark Breslin, vice presidenrt and general manager ofin Albany, estimates that some element of greem construction now plays a part in 70 percent of all projectas in the region. “There’se really no compelling reason anymore not to go said Breslin, whose company has green projects under its “We’ve seen a tremendous amount of increase in the last couplse years. I can’t think of a project that isn’tf doing some form of sustainability.” Turner incidentally, practices what it preaches: It had green in mind before it leased new offics space at Corporate Woodsin Albany.
“Ws know that the owners are selecting products basede onsustainability components,” Breslin