For a few builders, green not just the color of money

By Sean Madigan
Washington Business Journal
April 12, 2002

Jeffery Abramson's approach to constructing environmentally friendly buildings is almost evangelical. It seems as if the commercial developer is out trying to save the planet all by himself.

Within seconds, a simple conversation with Abramson about using more efficient heating and air-conditioning systems can unravel into a impassioned diatribe about the military's role in protecting U.S. oil interests in the Middle East.

Abramson is the kind of guy who would shop at Fresh Fields for organically grown grapefruits even though they might be a little bit smaller or less juicy than the overgrown orbs in the Safeway bin.

He would buy them not just because they're grown without pesticides and some say they're better for you. He would choose organically grown fruits also because they are more likely to come from a socially progressive farm, one less likely to exploit its workers.

Abramson, a principal of The Tower Cos. (http://www.towercompanies.com), a North Bethesda-based real estate development company, applies that same sort of thinking to his work. He has a passion and commitment to green buildings, and his enthusiasm for them doesn't stop at cheaper utility bills.

Abramson talks about putting up "smarter, healthier" buildings that not only will conserve energy but also ultimately will reduce absenteeism, increase productivity and encourage creativity -- change peoples' lives.

Explaining the logic of that view -- and citing a study by the Department of Energy and the Rocky Mountain Institute -- Abramson reasons that over the life of a building the lion's share of the cost per square foot is tied up in salaries and benefits. If green, worker-friendly improvements increase productivity, the modest expense from the improvements will pay for itself many times over, he contends.
Abramson likes to spout statistics such as these to buttress his case for green buildings: People spend 90 percent of their lives indoors. Buildings consume some 40 percent of the nation's energy and nearly two-thirds of its electricity.

When green is golden

In 1983, Lockheed Martin redesigned a 600,000 square-foot office building in Sunnyvale, Calif., and the architect told Lockheed it could design a building to use half as much energy as the company had planned, according to a report from the Rocky Mountain Institute (http://www.rmi.org), located near Aspen, Colo.
The energy-efficient improvements added an extra $2 million to the building's $50 million price tag, but Lockheed saved $500,000 a year on energy bills. The energy-saving measures paid for themselves in four years.

In addition, absenteeism immediately dropped 15 percent, and the reduction in absenteeism paid for the extra costs of the building within a year.
The company also said productivity rose 15 percent on the first major contract handled in the new building compared with similar work performed with the same 2,700 engineers in the old space.

Although Lockheed Martin realized the return on its investment relatively quickly, in many cases companies take much longer to recoup the added expense.
That lag time is palatable for government or large institutions that hold on to their buildings for decades, but commercial developers and their tenants aren't always in it for the long haul, so short-terms costs are an issue.

on the Leeding edge

Abramson is one of the few commercial developers constructing buildings in compliance with the LEED certification program of the D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council (http://www.usgbc.org).

LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a 69-point program that awards projects points for using more environmentally friendly building practices and design elements.

For example, if a project is built on a brownfield site, that would earn a point. If a project is built within a quarter mile of two bus lines or a half mile from rail service, that too would earn a point. A project also would earn a point if the owner installed electronic controls that monitor mechanical systems, reduced water consumption by 20 percent, or bought power from a green utility company.
A project needs a minimum of 26 points to be certified and gets added recognition for more points. A silver rating requires 33 points, a gold 39 points and a platinum -- the highest rating -- 52 points.

An executive order by President Clinton requires that all new federal buildings adhere to LEED standards. Some state and local governments -- including Arlington County -- also have joined the LEED trend.

Other institutions and organizations are adopting the LEED program as well.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation headquarters in Bay Ridge, Md., is the only building in the country that qualifies for a LEED platinum rating.

However, even though this region might have the premier green building in the country, the area overall lags well behind the top LEED states.

A total of 18 LEED projects are in various stages of development in Maryland, Virginia and the District, according to the Green Building Council's LEED registry.

By comparison, Oregon has 29 LEED projects and Washington state has 26.
In D.C., Maryland and Virginia, 10 of the LEED projects are government (seven of those federal) and four are educational, institutional or nonprofit organizations. Another one is designated multipurpose.
Only three are commercial ventures -- and Abramson has two of those.
One of his LEED projects in the pipeline is an 86,000-square-foot residential development in Silver Spring, the first LEED-certified residential project in the country and he's marketing it to the Fresh Fields set.

"He's trying to do it, but it's difficult," says architect Ken Wilson, who runs an interior design business. "There's just not enough general awareness in the market. Demand is growing and it's just not there yet. Jeffery is making a go of it."

Letting the sun shine in

Wilson's clients are perhaps the world's biggest tree huggers. And like Abramson, they too are putting their money where their mouths are.
Wilson's shop, Envision, renovated the Greenpeace office in Chinatown and recently completed the 19,000-square-foot renovation of Environmental Defense's Washington office.
LEED certification does not yet apply to building renovations, but Wilson is part of the Green Building Council's team drafting a pilot program.
In the Environmental Defense offices, design decisions took into consideration the impact on workers as well as the type of material that would be used.
The floor in the reception area is made of bamboo instead of oak or pine because bamboo is a more rapidly renewable resource. All the millwork is formaldehyde-free wheatboard and strawboard.

The chairs in the break room have painted steel legs instead of chromium -- not because chrome is harmful, but because a number of toxic byproducts are created during its production.
This careful consideration for special materials drives up the cost of the project, but Wilson disputes perceptions that green design costs more.
"More than what?" he asks. "Green design does cost more if compared to the cheapest possible minimum standard that only considers first cost, but then so does everything else."
For Wilson, when someone wants to know if green design is more costly the answer is, "maybe, maybe not."

And some green design decisions have nothing to do with cost, Abramson says. "Daylight is free. You just have to let it in."

Starting in July, Maryland will give Abramson an 8 percent tax credit on the extra $500,000 Tower will spend to make its $18 million residential project in Silver Spring LEED certified.
But for him, ideology trumps tax breaks.

"That will never change the environment; that's no incentive," he says. "It's very simple to do it the old way. We can't go about building as we used to because our environment can't support that."

E-mail: smadigan@bizjournals.com Phone: 703/816-0335
© 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.