by Robin Bass, LEED AP

​As of January 1, 2011, the 2010 California Green Building Standards Code, or CALGreen, requires new building construction to reduce waste, improve water efficiency, and mitigate overall environmental impacts.  In spite of its environmental intent, CALGreen is not without limitations. As so often with new legislation, and particularly in this era of fiscal constraints, there are few resources available to measure and enforce the new code.  While it is a groundbreaking milestone as well as a national precedent, what does this legislation mean to owners, developers, and A/E/C professionals? In the short run, CALGreen raises the floor for sustainable design and construction. However, it does not address many of the challenges that need to be met in terms of reducing carbon emissions or streamlining the regulatory and third-party certification process.

​A Potential Barrier to Increased Energy Efficiency
The State’s climate change goals, established in the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB-32) and reaffirmed by the voters through Proposition 23 just last year, aims to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 30% by the year 2020.  Ideally, CALGreen would support the greenhouse gas reduction targets with measurable goals for energy efficiency, but at present it only requires meeting the minimum mandatory energy efficiency standards required by the Calfornia Energy Code and Title 24. It remains to be seen in the current economic and political climates whether California’s Energy Code will require further energy reductions in the near future. Of course, California’s Energy Code reduces energy use more than most states, but as demonstrated by the more than 1,000 LEED Certified projects statewide, we can do better.
 
We now have the ability to achieve higher than minimum energy efficiency in new and existing commercial buildings in cost-effective ways.  With advances in lighting systems, mechanical equipment, and building envelope design, the goal should be to design for maximum energy efficiency wherever and whenever possible. For example, on the multiple LEED Interior Design + Construction projects I have completed, the project team consistently achieves greater than 15% over Title 24.  In cases where utilities are rolled into a commercial lease and a tenant has no monetary incentive for improved energy efficiency, energy consumption is routinely realized on a cost neutral basis. In addition to energy, CALGreen’s minimum requirements for water reduction, recycling, indoor air quality, and other criteria should be exceeded at minimal or no additional cost.

​Challenges with Implementation
With any new building code, there is a need to educate plan reviewers and inspectors and to develop a strategy for enforcement.  The economic climate has significantly reduced the resources, such as staff and operating hours, which many city and county building and planning departments can allocate to incorporate CALGreen at a local level.  Building departments will be challenged to review and verify the necessary documentation for CALGreen compliance to truly give it any weight. 
 
More than 70 cities and counties throughout the state have already developed and adopted energy efficiency requirements within their local green building regulations. In San Francisco, the 2008 Green Building Ordinance addresses more aggressive energy reduction targets and will remain the standard for all new construction.  Other cities that first work through CALGreen become pacesetters in incorporating the code. There are many existing case studies and best practices among cities in the Bay Area that could serve as models for local agencies and developers to apply to regions lacking green building momentum.
 
Particularly in these areas with no local green building legislation, developers should evaluate a project team’s qualifications and experience with sustainable design being a major criteria.  Challenges that developers might be facing could include a longer review process, additional information required for drawing documentation, and expanded inspection services in order to comply with CALGreen. Above and beyond the 65 mandatory measures in CALGreen, there are also levels (Tier 1 and Tier 2 – Tier 2 being the most aggressive) that jurisdictions can choose to adopt which alter the definition of green building.

​Meeting Demands of Climate Change
Because of its high density, San Francisco has learned right away that its carbon footprint is linked to its existing building stock.  The City’s Existing Commercial Buildings (ECB) Task Force has made significant strides toward creating a plan to reduce total energy use by an estimated 50% by the year 2030.  The driving force behind this plan is AB-32.  Released in 2007, LA’s Green Building Plan calls for the City to reduce its carbon footprint by 35 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.  If the goal for California is to reach 30% statewide energy reduction, it won’t be met with CALGreen’s minimum guidelines for new construction.  The strength of the ECB’s plan is its holistic approach to evaluate a building’s life span through energy benchmarking.  If businesses and institutions first create strategic improvements in their existing buildings, that success can set the stage for even greater accomplishments with new construction.

​Building a Better Baseline
CALGreen is a statewide regulation that we must understand, follow and integrate into our design, construction and building permit processes. But from the onset of a project, building owners and developers need to be aware of CALGreen’s minimum regulations as well as adopted tiers and encouraged to explore options to achieve the best possible levels of energy efficiency. The good news for those of us who have been committed to sustainability for many years is that CALGreen is an easily achievable baseline that will allow for improvements that we can exceed on every level. For those who are late adopters, it is now a requirement, but hopefully, a welcomed platform that will promote green building throughout the state and the country.  It’s too early to tell just how local and state mandates and third-party rating systems like LEED will converge and work with or against each other, much less what will happen across the country as other states begin to follow California’s lead.  But I am optimistic that CALGreen can adapt and evolve to ultimately help California meet its climate change goals.

Robin Bass, LEED AP, is a Senior Associate of Huntsman Architectural Group. An advocate for sustainability within the firm and in the community, Robin has served as a member of the USGBC's Steering Committee and as an ECB Task Force member.
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Part One: San Francisco
by Sascha Wagner, IIDA CID LEED AP
swagner@huntsmanag.com

During economic downturns, competition among building owners for office tenants usually becomes fierce. It’s a function of simple math: More properties are competing for fewer tenants. Down-cycles in the market can be an opportunity for building owners to take advantage of lower construction costs and improve their properties with the aim of attracting high quality tenants. However, the challenge is to make the right moves to meet the needs of the leasing market, taking into account the building’s location, amenities, floor plans, as well as its competitors. While tenants may be looking for serious bargains in the current economic climate, the choice is never just about money—they are also looking for the right home for their company. Repositioning is about giving a building a lease on life – creating a new identity that will give tenants the quality and cachet they’re looking for.

Lack of maintenance can leave any commercial building looking worse for wear. But even well-designed and maintained buildings can begin to appear dated over time. Take the case of San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center West at 275 Battery Street. Designed by John Portman in the 1980s as an extension of Embarcadero Center, the high-rise’s public spaces had lost some of their original elegance with the passage of time. Recent vacancies on multiple floors created opportunities for the owners to lease large swaths of space. However, a bit of a makeover was required. Making the building attractive to contemporary tenants—with the legal profession particularly in mind—involved remodeling the lobby, elevator cabs, and elevator lobbies to give the building a modern, unified visual identity.

In other cases, the building may never have had a strong visual identity – perhaps due to local adjacency planning criteria – which can provide an opportunity to create one. 100 Van Ness was built in the 1980s as a slab-style high-rise with a fairly nondescript character. It’s currently undergoing a repositioning effort that involves transforming the building lobbies and elevators. In this case, the main entrance lobby is being “pulled outside” to make a visual statement on an otherwise blank exterior.

Real estate brokers play a key role in working with building owners to reposition buildings – not only helping refine the target market, but also advising whether the floor plates are the right size or offer the right flexibility for the desired tenant group. Sometimes architectural interventions are necessary to adapt the structure. 123 Townsend (The Townsend Building), a historic building in San Francisco’s multimedia gulch, has 21,000-square-foot floor plates that were served by only two staircases. In repositioning the building, the design team collaborated with the brokers and proposed adding a third stair, which would enable the floor plates to be divided into thirds. Each floor can now be leased in 7,000-, 14,000-, or 21,000-square-foot blocks. This added flexibility for future growth was appealing to the targeted audience of young technology companies just starting out—they could begin with a 7,000-square-foot piece and expand in increments as their business grew. Upgrading the building’s capacity to handle significant technology infrastructure, and remodeling the lobbies were also part of the effort. After the repositioning, the brokers leased the entire building to multiple tenants within a year.

Developing a long-term plan for adding green design elements to a building can go a long way toward attracting tenants in the technology creative fields, for whom sustainability is often a significant part of their identity. The repositioning of 634 Second Street involved the development of sustainability criteria and a long-term strategy for meeting LEED for Existing Buildings requirements, as well as remodeling part of the façade, adding a new passenger elevator and roof deck, and upgrading the lighting, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing systems. With these new features added, ServiceSource, a service performance management company, leased all three floors. Other sustainable strategies that can make buildings stand out include bicycle parking areas and sub-metering for electricity, which allows each tenant to reap the benefits of their own energy conservation measures.

Repositioning does not have to be comprehensive or expensive. Instead of replacing the stone in a lobby, for example, adding area rugs, draperies, and new signage and directories can provide a fresh look. Perhaps the guard desk can be resurfaced instead of replaced. Installing new energy-efficient bulbs can reduce electricity consumption and offer improved lighting quality at a fraction of the cost of replacing entire light fixtures. In some cases, costs for systems upgrades can even be rolled into ongoing maintenance budgets. Regardless of the scope of upgrades, any repositioning effort should be done strategically and with expert advice. Getting a building filled with tenants by spending money on improvements can certainly be seen as a chicken-and-egg scenario. But spending money wisely can pay big dividends down the road.

Part Two of “Repositioning the Commercial Office Building” will look at some specific repositionings in New York.

Sascha Wagner, IIDA CID LEED AP is a Principal at Huntsman Architectural Group and has assisted building owners and real estate developers with building repositioning projects in the Bay Area.