BIG GREEN BUILDINGS

Iconic skyscrapers find new luster by going green
Chris Kahn, July 4, 2009 (AP)

SUMMARY
Increasingly, buildings that show “green” credentials are more successful in an ever more competitive commercial real estate marketplace. Owners and tenants are discovering that money spent for efficiency retrofits saves on power and water and attracts customers and tenants without compromising aesthetics.

As a consequence, specialists who combine renovation and retrofits around the U.S. are busy insulating porous walls in grand old buildings, adding high tech water-efficient plumbing systems to classic architecture and using energy-saving recycled material in carpets and tile flooring with unique period designs.

Case 1: The prime example of a skyscraper going green is Manhattan’s Empire State Building. Perhaps the world’s most iconic commercial architecture, the owners chose to spend $120 million on a variety of Energy Efficiency retrofits to make it a more economic as well as a more marketable address. (See NEW ENERGY EFFICIENCY FOR EMPIRE STATE BUILDING)

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The Empire State Building is getting a top-to-bottom renovation that includes $13.2 million in sustainable technologies to cut the building’s greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs). The 18-month makeover, which will earn the building a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), will cost little more than any other kind of renovation. It will include retrofitting all 6,500 windows and insulating radiators. The building's lighting, cold water and ventilation systems will also be upgraded. When complete, the owners expect to get energy savings of $4.4 million a year, enough to pay off the entire upgrade in ~3 years.

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One tenant, Skanska, chose the renovated Empire State Building for its LEED platinum certification. Another, attorney Jacques Catafago, chose it because it beats the cost of buildings uptown and saves money on operational costs.

Case 2: The Christman Building is an 81-year-old Elizabethan Revival office in Lansing, Mich., that's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. During a renovation to repair the limestone exterior and preserve unique details like the mica light fixtures, the owners upgraded to water-efficient plumbing, increased natural light and a reflective "cool" roof, at a cost of $8.5 million.

Case 3: Chicago's 36-year-old Sears Tower, a 110-story, staggered skyscraper, is doing a 5-year, $350 million green renovation. It will add solar panels, wind turbines and 35,000 square feet of sunlight-absorbing gardens to its roofs. The improvements will cut the tower's electricity use 80% and save 24 million gallons of water.

The numbers are conclusive. Does Green Pay Off?, a CoStar Group study by Norm Miller, Jay Spivey and Andy Florance, shows clearly that energy efficient and LEED-certified buildings have higher occupancies, get more rent, lease better and sell better (after controlling for age, size and location).

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COMMENTARY
A few years ago, the Empire State Building retrofit might have been considered a gamble. Today, it is considered a smart investment. The results of the CoStar study show in hard, cold numbers what real estate people had already begun to intuit: In recent years, environmentally friendly retrofits have begun to pay off. Companies, especially high-profile companies, want more efficient office spaces they can show off to their increasingly environmentally-aware clientele. New technology in older, more architecturally appealing buildings translates into higher property values, higher and longer leases and better occupancy rates.

As a result, forward-thinking building owners have been buying retrofits. Less forward thinking owners are buying retrofits, too, because their tenants and prospective tenants are demanding them.

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The Empire State Building’s experience with Skanska, which specifically shopped for a property with the USGBC LEED certification, is becoming more common. High profile companies need the “green cred” to compete, sometimes even without knowing exactly what LEED certifification means.

Transwestern management group works with tenants looking for certified properties. 9 of the properties it works with got LEED certification in 2009. They switched light bulbs, upgraded to efficient equipment and cut energy costs an average of 2%. That’s a big deal when power rates go up 10-to-40%. While Transwestern does not report increased leasing, its buildings have so far not had reduced occupancy, despite recessionary office building vacancy rates across the country that have gone from 10.9% in 2007 to 12.4% in the first quarter of 2009.

The CoStar study covered ~1200 Energy Star and LEED-certified buildings. Energy Star buildings are those in the highest 25% of efficiency. It compared them to ~2000 non-green buildings. All the buildings in the study were multi-tenanted Class A office buildings of 200,000 square feet or more, 5 stories or more, and built since 1970.

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Green buildings had a 90.3% occupancy rate in the first 3 months of 2009 and rented at an average of $38.86 per square foot while the non-green rate was 84.7% and the average rent was $29.80 per square foot. The study reported the increased cost of retrofits that get Energy Star ratings or LEED certification for their enhanced efficiencies to be from 1.0%-to-10.3%, depending on the rating/certification level and the location.

The CoStar study included an answer to an especially interesting question at this juncture: If a building owner finds tenants will not pay higher rents for retrofits and upgrades, is there still value in doing them?

The study says the answer is probably “yes” because (a) the building will likely have faster absorption (get bought, leased or rented sooner), which is a financial benefit, and (b) there will be lower operating expenses and cap rates in the short-term as well as the expected long-term energy-saving benefits.

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QUOTES
- Anthony E. Malkin, attorney and head of real estate group owners, Empire State Building: "In a good market, we're going to get the best rents for the best tenants…In a bad market like we have now, we're going to get tenants when other buildings won't."
- Allan Skodowski, Transwestern management group: "They say 'We want LEED,' …and that's it...If one extra tenant comes and looks at the building, if the owner gets an extra penny or so a foot, then at the end of the day it's paying for itself…"
- Marc Heisterkamp, director of commercial real estate, U.S. Green Building Council: "This isn't just a 'We are doing the right thing' movement…In the end, the numbers pencil out."

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- Spokeswoman, Skanska, an Empire State Building tenant: "We had looked at several downtown spaces, but the Empire State Building made the most sense…"
- Jacques Catafago, attorney, an Empire State Building tenant: "We'd be paying twice as much [uptown]…"
- From the Executive Summary of "Does Green Pay Off?" from The Journal of Sustainable Real Estate: “These results are promising for the benefits of investment in sustainable real estate, energy savings and for the green movement now sweeping our society. The payoff from wise green investment is easy to justify even if based on purely profit motivations.”