Southern California Green Real Estate Blog

GREEN OFFICE AND INDUSTRIAL REITS SHOWING PROMISE

September 25, 2009 on 12:43 am | In Curious, For Your Purchasing Pleasure, Green Workplace, Solutions, Uncategorized, all, the bright side | 2 Comments

GREEN OFFICE AND INDUSTRIAL REITS SHOWING PROMISE

By Jodi Summers

Office and industrial REITs expect to remain tightly focused for the balance of the year –evaluating the damage to occupancy and rents twisted by current economic conditions.Expect REITs to be greening and negotiating sexier leases mitigate potential damage.

Buildings are responsible for 40% of emissions, and commercial sectors such as industrial and office are greening to cut costs and attract hipper clients.

Taking such savvy acts, coupled with the 2^nd + 3^rd quarter strengthening of the economy have motivated market observers to observe that the publicly traded REIT market at bottom or near bottom.

A recent CBRE Investors report noted that “the bottom of the capital market cycle may be close,” with pricing metrics on U.S. commercial real estate starting to look attractive again to buyers.

“Much of the recent negative press about commercial real estate reflects the experiences of distressed owners,” CBRE noted in their report. “However, from

prospective buyers’ perspectives, many pricing indicators look historically favorable,” based on the current widening spread between aappraised-value cap rates and risk-free 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds.

“Just as REITs led the private markets in 2007 and 2008, it is probable that the recent share-price recovery is an early indicator that a trough in private markets is coming soon.”

Energy saving upgrades such as timed lighting + cooling, white roofs and thin solar films to cover the windows of office buildings are cutting back on cooling costs and increasing user comfort.

CoStar’s office and industrial market report stated that average sale prices, while down significantly from their 2007 peaks, are at or close to their historical averages. Cap rates have expanded sharply during the same period but are also in line with historic averages.

REITs comprise just 10% of the commercial real estate market, but wield significance as a bellwether for future commercial real estate conditions.

http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?id=6A1CBF26B572D3A957377280529227C0&ref=100&iid=143&cid=383F14EEE265B182474DA2442BACBBBF

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http://equitygreen.typepad.com/blog/2007/01/green_reits_par.html

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NOBEL PRIZE WINNER AL GORE TO SPEAK ON GREEN CONSTRUCTION @ GREENBUILD

September 18, 2009 on 11:05 am | In Green Building, Solutions, Uncategorized, all | 5 Comments

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER AL GORE TO SPEAK ON GREEN CONSTRUCTION @ GREENBUILD

Edited by Jodi Summers

Nobel Prize winner and former Vice President Al Gore as the opening keynote speaker for USGBC’s annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo being held Nov. 11-13, 2009, in Phoenix, Ariz.

“Al Gore’s impressive career and bipartisan outreach have helped elevate global climate change to the main street public consciousness,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council. “The role buildings play in our lives, our health, the economy and the global environment – including being responsible for 39% of the carbon emitted in the United States – means the built environment is a tremendous opportunity for us to make real change.”

Buildings in the United States are responsible for 39% of CO2 emissions, 40% of energy consumption, 13% water consumption and 15% of GDP per year, making green building a source of significant economic and environmental opportunity. Greater building efficiency can meet 85% of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million American jobs.

Former Vice President Gore’s keynote address will kick off Greenbuild at the Opening Keynote & Celebration, taking place Nov. 11 at Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The evening celebration will feature a musical performance by nine-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow and an address from USGBC President, CEO & Founding Chair, Rick Fedrizzi.

Al Gore has championed awareness and action to confront global climate change since his earliest days in the U.S. Congress 30 years ago, and is regarded for his pioneering role in helping put one of the most important challenges of our time on the map, with his best-selling book and Academy Award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. In 2007, Gore was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for his environmental activism. In 1992, Gore published Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit and instituted environmental policy and initiatives in the Clinton-Gore Administration to help safeguard the environment.

Gore is cofounder and chairman of Generation Investment Management and multiplatform media company Current TV. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Computer, Inc. and a senior advisor to Google, Inc. Gore is also Visiting Professor at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Greenbuild is the largest gathering of representatives from all sectors of the green building movement. Previous Greenbuild keynote speakers have included former President Bill Clinton in 2007 and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2008.

For more information, visit www.usgbc.org and www.greenbuildexpo.org. To see presentations made at last year’s Greenbuild, visit www.greenbuild365.org.

http://www.usgbc.org/Docs/News/Greenbuild_Gore%20Keynote.pdf

http://www.usgbc-centraltexas.org/Docs/newsletter/January_2009/January2009.html

http://www.andrewblum.net/typepad/2007/01/index.html

http://www.makefive.com/categories/debate/social-change/most-inspiring-people-of-2007

BREN HALL GOES LEED DOUBLE PLATINUM

September 18, 2009 on 12:25 am | In Act Locally, Green Building, LEED, Solutions, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

BREN HALL GOES LEED DOUBLE PLATINUM

By Jodi Summers

Quick – think of the richest man in U.S. real estate named Donald.

Bet you did not think of the real star of real estate – our local Donald Bren. Affectionately dubbed, “America’s richest landlord,” the 76-year-old Newport Beach resident is the wealthiest man in American real estate, as well as an extremely admirable philanthropist. On his shelf of accolades and trophies, Bren can now add the first double platinum building in the country.

Bren Hall, which houses the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara – has become the nation’s first building to earn two LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certifications. Double platinum is the highest sustainability rating possible from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

In August, Bren Hall received a Platinum certification for Existing Buildings –– Operations & Maintenance. This certification comes seven years after Bren Hall opened in 2002 as the greenest laboratory facility in the nation, and the first to be certified Platinum for New Construction by the USGBC’s LEED Green Building Rating System.

“As the first project to receive LEED Platinum certification as both a new and existing building, Bren Hall demonstrates tremendous green building leadership,” states Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO & founding chair of the U.S. Green Building Council. “The urgency of the USGBC’s mission has challenged the industry to move faster and reach further than ever before, and Bren Hall serves as a prime example with just how much we can accomplish.”

The second platinum certification for Bren Hall was under the Existing Buildings certification. The building is a retrofitting role model as no major reconstruction was undertaken to obtain the Platinum certification. Most of the work was done at “no cost or low cost,” observes Jordan Sager, LEED program manager at UCSB’s Physical Facilities. He notes that the biggest changes were an upgrade of the already energy-efficient laboratory fume hoods and the purchase of 2 million megawatt hours of renewable wind and solar energy credits. The building received the maximum amount of credits possible for energy efficiency.

Certification confirmation was based on how the building fared during a three-month performance period. Bren Hall’s energy use was one-third to one-half that of similar buildings of similar function.

It is an exemplary building for LEED v3.0– which focuses saving energy for the long term.

Real estate developer Donald Bren is a self-made millionaire, with a net worth in excess of $13 billion, made much of his money as chairman of The Irvine Company, a privately held real estate investment company known for creating balanced, sustainable, quality communities like the 93,000-acre Irvine Ranch in Orange County. Finished plots sell for more than $1 million an acre. The ranch also has 400 office buildings, 35 shopping centers, 80 apartment complexes and 2 luxury hotels.

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http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=2069

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/31KV.html

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BRAVO! LEED v3.0 LOOKS AT THE BIG PICTURE IN GREEN BUILDINGS + LETS YOU LOOK TOO

September 11, 2009 on 12:02 am | In Green Building, LEED, Solutions, Trends, Uncategorized, all | 7 Comments

BRAVO! LEED v3.0 LOOKS AT THE BIG PICTURE IN GREEN BUILDINGS + LETS YOU LOOK TOO

By Jodi Summers

LEED v3.0 – the U.S. Green Building Council’s latest green buildings rating system, has a brave new focus – saving energy on the long term.

“This version reflects the rapid advancements in building science and technology and provides incentives for strategies that have greater positive impacts on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions reductions, among other priorities,” notes treehugger.com.

Known around town as LEED 2009, what’s piquing the interest of the saving-money-thru-green-minded is a new requirement that focuses on facility maintenance during the life span of the building. The new rules mandate that energy and water usage for buildings seeking LEED certification now has to be reported for at least five years.

“One of the major differences with the new rating system is that sharing and reporting this energy use data is now required, as it was optional in the previous rating system,” observed property manager Michael Martz.

USGBC will allow projects to comply with the requirement in any of three ways:

1. To renew LEED certification every two years using LEED for Existing Buildings: Operation and Maintenance.

2. Provide energy and water usage data for the building on an ongoing basis annually.

3. The owner of the property authorizes USGBC to access the building’s energy and water usage data directly from the building’s utility provider.

With LEED v3.0, the USGBC offers a more savvy point rating system. The LEED rating system is increasing from a total of 69 points to 100 points – with an emphasis on what matters most from an environmental standpoint – energy efficiency and CO2 reductions. It the early days, a building could earn the same number of points for installing a commuter bike rack as optimizing energy by 10% or reducing water usage by 20%. Now credits are weighed based on how the course of action improves environmental and sapient health.

The LEED v3.0 vision also does a superior job of calculating the value of refurbishing the value of existing buildings. LEED v3.0 looks at the BIG picture.

Part of USGBC’s goal is to help owners and operators optimize building performance over the building’s lifetime. LEED v3.0 goes with the theory that collecting data is the best way to identify and help correct the common gap between energy modeling during the design phase and the building’s actual energy usage.

For those already constructing or managing LEED-certified buildings, the new requirements won’t be much of a change. Add-ons to current building systems will increase front-end costs a bit, but the big upside is that owners can now micromonitor energy usage. This investment will offer a significant savings in energy usage over the life of the building.

“They can see when the energy use has peaked, when it’s at the low, when it’s at the mean, and then they can adjust their programs or their overall systems,” explains Martz.

With LEED v3.Going forward, small businesses will be able to monitor their energy usage with the sophistication of institutions that consume a lot of energy, such as universities, skyscrapers and industrial manufacturers.