Building a Green Maryland : Maryland Green Building Lawyer & Attorney : Megan Reuwer : O’Malley, Miles, Nylen & Gilmore Law Firm : MD Green Building, Sustainability

Did you know that Maryland has a Green Building Council that was created by state law in 2007? It's true - and this Council is charged with some pretty important responsibilities (expanded by state law in 2009), including:

1. Evaluating current high performance building technologies;
2. Providing recommendations for cost-effective green building technologies for the State to consider requiring in the construction of State facilities;
3. Providing recommendations concerning how to expand green building in Maryland; and
4. Developing of a list of building types for which green building technologies should not be applied, considering the operational aspects of these facilities, and considering a waiver process where appropriate.
5. As part of these tasks, the Council must report annually to the Governor and the General Assembly on its recommendations and any progress that has been made during the preceding year by November 1.

Let's take a look at the 2009 Annual Report to review some important recommendations that, if implemented, will impact the green building industry in Maryland:

• Encourage green building practices that can be done without government funding: This might not be the most welcome recommendation by members of the building industry.  As we've learned from industry leaders like Marnie Abramson in previous posts, there are learning curve costs associated with going green. If there are no incentives to help offset those costs, then we might see less novice, would-be green builders taking those beginning steps.
• Reward exceptional projects through high-profile awards recognition: I think this is a great idea - if the government makes a commitment to publicize (and keep publicizing) the "greenest" buildings in the State, this will continue to create market recognition (and eventually, market demand) for these types of projects.  Maybe the Council could take this recommendation one step further by also rewarding the tenants/occupants of the greenest buildings through a badge or logo that they can display in their spaces to further publicize the program.
• Require that new or renovated buildings (greater than 7,500 square feet) on State-owned or State-leased land achieve LEED Silver certification: This is followed in the Report by a recommendation that all major building projects funded entirely or in part by the State meet LEED Silver (to include construction by local governments, boards of education, community colleges, bond bill recipients, health care providers, and affordable housing developers). This would significantly expand the existing mandate for green building in Maryland (which is set forth in the High Performance Building Act - see section 2 of this prior post for details).
• The "bare minimum" recommendation: The Council acknowledges that mandates that change accepted practices tend to evoke a negative reaction and may be resisted by those impacted by the change. With that in mind, the Council suggests that, at a bare minimum, applicants for State aid for building construction should be requested by lawmakers to provide detailed descriptions of how green their projects are anticipated to be, and this information should be considered when decisions are made on the extent of funding they receive. [Pg. 11 of 2009 Report]. This is both a carrot and a stick - and "punishment" and a reward system that could penalize those not green enough while rewarding the greenest among us. I think this might have promise because it's not an out-and-out mandate, but it does have a bit of teeth to it.  On the practical side, if implemented, it will likely require a greater time component for those requesting State aid.

We'll see if and how these recommendations are addressed as this year's Session gets to business.

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Last week, I posted the first part of a two-part interview with Marnie Abramson, a Principal and the Director of Public Relations and Marketing at The Tower Companies, about their double Platinum LEED certified 200,000 square foot, multi-tenant commercial building located at 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard in Rockville, Maryland and about Tower's experiences with green building in general. I've heard from several readers personally about how much they've enjoyed Part I of the interview  - and so I'm happy to share with you the continuation of that interview in Part II here today.

Has Tower been able to estimate the utility savings for 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard as compared to a non-certified 200,000 square foot office building?

LEED doesn’t really translate across the board into energy savings. Because of the way the LEED point system is designed, you as a builder can pick and choose the points that you want to pursue. If you’re not pursuing the Energy & Atmosphere points, then there’s not going to be that correlation between your project and energy savings. It’s hard to estimate utility savings between a certified and non-certified building for these reasons; however, you can look at your Energy Star score. At 2000 Tower Oaks, our Energy Star score is a 90. That means that we’re going to perform, under the most recent ASHRAE standard, about 28% more efficient than an average new construction Class A office building.

Do you think the benefits of designing your corporate headquarters on the ninth floor to meet Platinum certification under LEED for Commercial Interiors have merited the costs?

There were a few things that we did for our interior office space that were expensive, but I think that they do merit their costs. For example, we installed carbon dioxide sensors in our offices. These help us monitor air quality and that’s especially important in shared spaces like conference rooms. If you’ve ever been in a conference room for a long period of time, you may notice that you start to become tired or develop a headache. The reason is because there’s not enough oxygen in that room. When you come out of an all day conference in our offices, you do not leave tired. You can literally go back to your desk and start working. So, for us, there’s a huge productivity benefit that, hands down, pays for the initial cost over time.

Additionally, we maximized the amount of natural light that comes into our space so that we’re harvesting a free, natural resource and using less artificial lighting. LEED recommends that an office building not exceed 1 watt per square foot; in our space, we’re at 0.63 watts per square foot. We installed day-lighting sensors to read interior candle lumens that then automatically adjust the amount of artificial light needed to light the space. In addition to the energy savings that this provides, we’re also helping to increase employee productivity by providing views and access to natural daylight. 

We always knew that we wanted to go for Platinum level certification for our corporate office space because sustainability is everything that we stand for. We were committed and ready to achieve that level of certification from the beginning, and we’re happy with the result.

What were some of the challenges or surprises that you faced in getting 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard certified under either track (CS or CI)?

One interesting fact is that we ended up getting an Innovation Point for the installation of a system that protects the base building and everyone who works in it from electromagnetic frequencies (EMF). Here at Tower, we talk about EMF as the asbestos of the future, but this wasn’t something that the USGBC really understood at first because they hadn’t seen it before. We submitted a Credit Interpretation Request and supplied them with lots of information and studies demonstrating the potential negative consequences of EMF exposure, and the USGBC agreed with us in the end and we did get the Innovation point. I thought this was really interesting and important and I hope that the USGBC begins to integrate EMF concerns when they’re reexamining sustainability goals.

What’s next for The Tower Companies in terms of green building projects?

We are, without a doubt, focused on our existing building stock. We are looking at our entire building stock first for Energy Star purposes and then we’re going to go for LEED certification for Existing Buildings. There’s an interesting statistic floating out there that 90% of all buildings that will exist in the year 2020 have already been built.  What that means is that we can’t build our way into a more sustainable future. We’re always going to have more existing buildings than new construction, so until we start looking at how we can improve our existing building stock, we’re not going to have a meaningful and measureable impact on the environment. 

What I’m personally passionate about is trying to educate people and governments on the larger benefits of green building. The benefits go beyond fresh air and daylight and productivity. When you start to really think about the existing building stock on a national scale and how it can be improved, you begin to see all the economic opportunities that exist. The concept of a “green economy” becomes real when you think about how many jobs and opportunities this presents for plumbers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, renovating contractors and retrofitting contractors – the list just goes on and on. I think we’re faced with a great opportunity here and I hope that we can work with governments to create meaningful tax incentives and depreciation programs that can help spur job growth.

Thanks again to Marnie for her wonderful responses. I think it's clear that The Tower Companies is passionate about green building for all the best reasons - the benefits to the environment, to the people who inhabit or work in the green buildings, and to the building industry and economy in general.

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I recently had the wonderful opportunity to chat with Marnie Abramson, Principal and Director of Marketing & Public Relations at The Tower Companies, about Tower’s double Platinum LEED certified 200,000 square foot, multi-tenant commercial building located at 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard in Rockville, Maryland.

The Tower Companies is a three-generation, award winning commercial real estate development company founded in 1947 and headquartered in Rockville.  Tower is EPA-certified carbon-neutral, a member of EPA’s Climate Leaders and Energy Star programs, and is the area’s leading regional builder of U.S. Green Building Council LEED® certified projects.  Tower has six LEED certified projects, seven are LEED registered, and 25% of their employees are LEED Accredited Professionals (AP). Their diverse portfolio includes more than 4.5 million square feet of office building, 1400 apartments, regional malls, residential communities, lifestyle centers, office parks, and hotels within the DC area.  Of this total, one million square feet are LEED or sustainable projects, and another 2.5 million square feet are in the planning stages.

2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard (pictured at right) has been certified LEED Platinum for Core and Shell and the Tower Companies’ headquarters, located on the ninth floor, is certified LEED Platinum for Commercial Interiors. The building was recently heralded by Peter Franchot, Comptroller of Maryland, as being the “greenest” office building in Maryland.

In part one of this two-part this interview, I ask Marnie questions about The Tower Companies’ experience with the LEED certification process, the cost of green building, and how Tower maintains its commitment to sustainability once the building is complete. Thanks again to Marnie for her time and very thoughtful responses.

How did The Tower Companies develop its passion for green building? What inspired you and what continues to inspire you?

The Tower Companies began building sustainably in the mid-1990’s. Our passion for green building was fueled when we learned that buildings were responsible for 40% of the carbon dioxide emissions and 40% of energy consumption nationwide. These statistics horrified us, and they became the trigger for the company to begin to think about how we, as builders, could change. At that time, were in the process of renovating a building that we had built in the 1970’s (1909 K Street). We decided to take the building down to the slab; add four new floors; add new curtain walls and a new electricity system – and when we were done, the building actually used the same amount of electricity as it had before we added the new 85,000 extra square feet. That was a big “wow” moment for us, and it sparked our imagination and caused us to challenge ourselves to explore further possibilities.

From there, we took what we learned and we ran with it. Since then, we have completed both commercial and residential projects that are LEED certified. In fact, one of our residential projects, the Blair Towns in Silver Spring, Maryland, is the first LEED certified apartments in America. We introduced the Blair Towns apartments into the market in 2003 when LEED was still relatively new and it was a challenge to build to even the most basic certification level of LEED. None of our partners wanted to work with us; none of our construction contractors wanted to do it; and our vendors all thought it was crazy because everything was still so new. Fast forward 6 years, and now we have a double platinum LEED certified building for basically the same cost premium. It’s been an amazing journey for us.

2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard is a beautiful building. Was there a “green premium” for constructing the building to meet Platinum certification under LEED for Core and Shell?

For a project like 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard, our green premium is “in the noise;” it’s essentially equivalent to a rounding error, and worked out to be approximately 1-2% percent of our total soft costs – so you can see that it’s a small number.

We also got a tax credit through Maryland and a tax rebate through Montgomery County. The tax credit from Maryland is a base building tax credit, and the tax rebate from Montgomery County is for the commercial office space, so both programs are different but compliment each other nicely. Tax incentives are important because they help offset learning costs. If a government can offer these kinds of incentives to developers that enable them to recoup some of the learning costs associated with sustainable projects, then that developer is going to continue to build sustainably because it becomes easier and more efficient for them to do as they acquire experience. Analogously, it’s like learning to transfer from a word processor to Microsoft Windows. Once you learn how to use Windows, you don’t go back to word processing. Today, The Tower Companies strives to build every building to be at least LEED gold certifiable; we’re able to raise the bar because we have that experience and that’s the path we’ve been growing on as a company. 

Has the LEED Platinum certification of 2000 Tower Oaks been a draw for your commercial tenants?

I think that people are curious and interested in the Platinum certification, but there’s also still a lot of fear that people are paying extra for that certification. The truth is that they’re not paying for the green products in your building. The whole concept of a “green premium” is an anomaly; it doesn’t really exist in a quantifiable way unless you’re developing a green building for the first time. I think that perhaps brokers and clients are confusing what they perceive to be a “green premium” with the market cost that usually accompanies a high-end product. 

Do you continue to maintain the green components of your buildings once they are occupied?

At Tower, we have implemented a green lease for all of our tenants in all of our buildings. Through this green lease, we ask our tenants to achieve a certain level of LEED certification depending on the building. We sit down with our tenants and explain to them what they need to do to achieve that certification and specifically what points we want them to acquire. We do this because we want to continue to make an impact. What people don’t understand about LEED for Core and Shell or LEED for New Construction is that the moment you deliver that building and turn over space to tenants, the benefits that you’ve created have expired. The building itself has been constructed to be sustainable, but it’s equally important once the building is complete to transition in to operating and maintaining the green components.

Part II of the interview will be available here next Wednesday. Check it out and learn what some of the challenges were to LEED certification and what Marnie sees as an economic future for the green building industry.

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