COVER STORY, JANUARY 2009

IT'S EASY BEING GREEN
Sustainable development is gaining momentum across the Midwest.
Ashley Ball

In today’s highly competitive market, keeping up with the Jones’ requires a commitment to going green. Sustainable design is being initiated for projects ranging from the smallest community centers to corporate high-rises, and this trend is only gaining momentum.

“In 5 years, I would not want to be the owner of a non-LEED-certified building,” explains Rick Collins, vice president of development for Ryan Cos. “The market is clearly moving in the direction of sustainable building,”

Essentially, building green means making green, and in the midst of economic uncertainty, industry professionals are using sustainable design as a way to inch ahead of competitors. In the process, these companies are reducing commercial real estate’s carbon footprint, and in some cases, creating a more comfortable building.            

Ryan Cos. US has opened Two MarketPointe, a 240,000-square-foot office building that was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.

In Bloomington, Minnesota, Ryan Cos. recently completed Two MarketPointe, an approximately 240,000-square-foot, Class A office building, which was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification. Some sustainable aspects of the property include water-saving fixtures in all bathrooms, an irrigation system that utilizes rainwater, and the use of low VOC finishes and materials.

When the building was completed in August, CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) was the first tenant to take occupancy. In addition to taking 73,000 square feet at the project, the company was retained by Ryan to co-manage the property and market the building. Although CBRE has not been in its office long enough to completely determine the cost savings associated with Two MarketPoint’s sustainable design, Whitney Peyton of CBRE estimates that the company will save 20 percent on lighting costs and 33 percent on HVAC costs.

Nevertheless, CBRE is not selling tenants simply on cost savings. The company has experienced first-hand how green elements, such as the under floor air delivery system, can create a more comfortable work environment for occupants.

“The Number 1 complaint in virtually every office building in America is that the heating, ventilating and air conditioning does not keep people hot and cool,” Peyton explains. Collins continues, “The under floor air system is both an energy savings and a comfort improvement, and right now, because the building does not have a long-term track record in operating expenses, the most important advantage tenants are seeing is the ability for every individual in his or her work station to have the opportunity to control the air flow to that station.”

According to statistics provided by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), having individual control of temperature can increase productivity by 3.6 percent. Additionally, the system brings fresh air to employees and deters the mixing of airborne pollutants, which in turn, decreases the amount of germs spreading throughout an office. The USGBC estimates that buildings with higher indoor air quality can reduce absenteeism by 1 to 2 percent.

“We did incur some additional costs,” Collins admits. Nevertheless, “a building should have a 50-year life or more, and to increase its value over the long-term, the extra incremental expense is well-worth the expenditure.”

Lake Land College Undergoes $20 Million Greening Lake Land College is undergoing a $20 million multi-phased renovation in order to “green” its campus in Mattoon, Ill. Like Ryan Cos. and CBRE, the administration of Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois, has recognized sustainability as the wave of the future. While the college is less interested in drawing students to the school with its green efforts, the administration has plans to use its revitalized campus as a tool for teaching sustainability. With the help of St. Louis-based turnkey engineering and construction services firm Control Technology Solutions (CTS), Lake Land College is implementing a $20 million greening plan that will leave the institution with a self-sustaining campus by 2012. “As far as cost savings, we are projecting around $94,000 per year in just electric and gas savings, without the influence of the wind turbine,” explains Mark Graves, the CTS account executive that has been working on the early development of the project. “We are going to increase their campus size, and we are actually going to be reducing [total utilities costs] around 15 to 16 percent,” continues Jay Hesskamp, a CTS engineer working at the site. One of the aspects of sustainable design that will translate into energy — and cost — savings for the campus is the heat pump diversification loop. Using geothermal well fields spread around the loop, the campus will be able to continually get the same degree of water all around the Campus. “If you were to imagine nine or 10 buildings spaced around this loop, each of these buildings would take water from that loop as a source of heating and cooling for the individual building, which is why it is a diversification loop,” Graves says. “It is taking either heating or cooling from the loop to provide the [heating or cooling] needs for the building.” Again, comfort is also being affected by this implementation. The loop will bring cooling to classrooms that were originally built without air conditioning, thus raising the comfort-level of students throughout the day. Nevertheless, regardless of its comfort and cost savings, the new design is an investment in the college and community’s future. “We are looking at green jobs being the jobs of the future,” Hesskamp explains. “You really will have to start building that infrastructure for those green jobs, and that is part of what the college is looking to do with this project.”

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