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November 11, 2006 - Commitment to 'green' draws builders to town
Bob Dylan's gravelly voice spat out the Joni Mitchell lyrics: "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. . . . Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone."
As Dylan sang Big Yellow Taxi, a slide of a pristine mountain peak, sliced by a rainbow and framed by giant evergreen trees and dissipating clouds was projected on a large screen under one word: Paradise!
It wasn't someone tree hugger using this multimedia visual aid. It was a developer - Jon Ratner, Forest City's sustainability czar.
Ratner was joined by officials from Lend Lease, RNL Design and McStain Neighborhoods at a Nov. 2 sustainability conference sponsored by ccintellect and Schenkein Public Relations.
But that event - which drew about 50 people to learn about the transformation of developers acting like "land rapers" to people such as Ratner who believe a development done right is as nice as a mountain setting - was just a warm-up for what may be the nation's largest gathering of "green" builders, developers, planners and others next week in Denver.
The three-day Greenbuild 2006 conference is being hosted by the U.S. Green Building Council, which sponsors the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating system for buildings and communities.
Experts will be attending from China, India, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Canada and Europe - 26 countries in all. Greenbuild 2006 is expected to pump almost $24 million into the local economy.
The conference will kick off with the Green Building Council releasing a new study on global warming.
Greenbuild 2006 will be twice as big as the recent Urban Land Institute convention, which drew 6,000 people to Denver. The Greenbuild conference will include some of the same speakers as ULI, such as California-based urban planner Peter Calthorpe, who was involved in the master plan at Stapleton, the Forest City development.
"I think this is marvelous, especially coming in the wake of ULI and (Denver Mayor John) Hickenlooper championing the greening of Denver," said Ken Parks, owner of Peak Public Relations, which consults and promotes transit-oriented and sustainable developments.
"One of the primary reasons we chose Denver is because of its commitment to green building," said Taryn Holowka, spokeswoman for the council, adding that tours of green buildings in Denver will be featured.
Opus Northwest will show off the 292,000-square-foot EPA building it is developing in lower downtown, said Marshall Burton, a vice president of Opus. The building includes a "green roof" - drought-resistant plants in recycled plastic modules.
Limited tours will be offered of the 186,000-square-foot Signature Centre office building under construction in Lakewood by Aardex Corp. and designed by architect Binh Vinh.
Aardex expects to get a platinum LEED rating after the building opens next year. It cost an additional $350,000 to make the building energy efficient enough to qualify for the platinum rating, Aardex principal Ben Weeks said.
Just a few years ago, it would have cost a 20 percent premium - or more than $9 million - to create such an energy-efficient building, said Chris Ernst, senior vice president of business development at Aardex.
But now that green building is so mainstream, it has driven down costs dramatically, Ernst said.
"Our payback will be almost instantaneous," Weeks said. "The fact that we arrived at a super-green building was a result of our user-effective design, not because we set out to get a LEED platinum building."
"If you look at the energy-efficient features in our building, you might say they are elements of a green building or a LEED building," Weeks added. "I would say they are elements of a responsible design that happens to qualify for LEED points."
Energy costs in the building - which will use solar and wind power - will be at least 50 percent lower than a typical building.
The green features allow the building to command the top lease rates on the west side, said Randy Swearingen, director of office development for Aardex.
Getting a LEED rating is time consuming and involves expenses for hiring consultants and extensive monitoring and record-keeping.
"When you look at the costs, one of the things that gives a green developer heartburn is, do you spend that $350,000 to get your rating, or do you put that money back into green features in the building?" Swearingen said.
"But we really think it is important to get the word out. If you don't build a green building today, it quickly will become obsolete."
Many people, however, still equate development with sprawl, and not without cause, said Ratner of Forest City.
The flip side is that many people in his office hate the Joni Mitchell song Big Yellow Taxi because they think it is anti-developer.
"But I love it," Ratner said. "And Dylan is my favorite singer."
LEED-certified buildings . . .
• are leading the transformation of the built environment.
• are built as designed and perform as expected.
• have lower operating costs and increased asset value.
• are healthy and comfortable for their occupants.
• reduce waste sent to landfills.
• conserve energy and water.
• reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
• demonstrate an owner's commitment to environmental stewardship and social responsibility.Source: U.S. Green Building Council
rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207
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Publication: Rocky Mountain News
