GreenClips.227 11.05.03 GREEN BUILDING SAVINGS FAR OUTWEIGH INITIAL COSTS, STUDY FINDS A few years ago, the state of California established the Sustainable Building Task Force, which commissioned a report to assess the costs and financial benefits of constructing green buildings in California. Based on a review of the construction costs of 33 green buildings in the United States, and factoring in the cost of energy, water and waste disposal in California, the recently released report found that it costs nearly 2 percent more on average -- or $3 to $5 a square foot -- to construct a green building than one using conventional methods. But that cost premium yields savings of more than 10 times the initial investment -- or $50 to $75 a square foot -- during the life of a building, conservatively assumed to be 20 years. The cost of conventional commercial construction in California was estimated at $150 to $250 per square foot. Greg Kats, the report's principal author, says that five years ago there was a 5 percent to 15 percent cost premium for green buildings. "Now, materials and design processes have become standardized, and more people know how to do it." The report concludes that constructing green buildings to LEED's gold level -- the third highest designation in the green building rating system -- makes the most financial sense. Capital Real Estate Journal, 8 Oct 2003, by Sheila Muto. [For information about Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's upcoming presentation about this report, scroll to the sponsors' section at the end of GreenClips. To download the report: http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/greenbuilding/Design/CostIssues.htm#Cost&Benefit ] ASSESSING THE SUCCESS OF WETLANDS MITIGATION ISN'T EASY Tucked between Monterey, California, and the Big Sur coastline is a new housing development called the Santa Lucia Preserve, on which 4.7 acres of seasonal wetlands were created to replace the loss of wetlands that were filled to build a golf course. The project, which also sets aside an undevelopable 18,000-acre preserve, has been hailed as eco-friendly. But the project has a number of ecologically controversial aspects, including a 2.59-acre pond that was created to mitigate the filling of .41 acres of open water that occurred when road crossings and culverts were put in over some of the site's creeks. The Carmel River Steelhead Association is convinced that low flows in the Los Garzas Creek are the result of too much water being held back by the pond. Is the Santa Lucia mitigation successful? It is being monitored and adaptively managed, and the created seasonal wetlands are quite beautiful. It is also hard to argue with an 18,000-acre preserve. Yet a definitive assessment is elusive because none of the current staff at the regulatory agencies responsible for permitting the project has visited the site, despite requiring the developer to submit regular monitoring reports on the new wetlands. Once a permit is issued, says Paul Jones, wetland expert with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 9 in San Francisco, the wetland is often not looked at and the developers are left to their own devices. Landscape Architecture, Nov 2003, p 42, by Lisa Owens Viani. PETER BUSBY'S GREEN VISION OF DESIGN Busby + Associates Architects is one of the busiest and most highly regarded design firms in Canada, and, arguably, the greenest. At its helm is Peter Busby, who has been instrumental in setting up the Canada Green Building Council (CAGBC) and in getting LEED licensed in Canada so that it can become a good benchmarking tool across the country. In Canada, Busby believes that green building progress has been more limited than in the United States, and that Canada's West Coast center of excellence hasn't spread far across the country. That said, Busby acknowledges that "the Canadian government has taken a more progressive position on Kyoto than has the American government. There's a commitment to reducing the energy and greenhouse gas impacts of buildings that is supported by the federal government, and is largely being picked up by the provinces. Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia are all looking at implementing ideas that come from the federal Kyoto commitment," so Busby expects that Canada will make more progress than the U.S. for the next couple of years. Busby + Associates' green buildings include the Operations Building for the City of White Rock, British Columbia, a LEED Gold-rated building, and One Wall Centre, a hotel and residential tower, which is Vancouver's tallest building and its first green tower. More: http://www.busby.ca IS Magazine, Oct 2003, p 30, by Penny Bonda. [Full text: http://www.isdesignet.com/Magazine/03oct/cover.html ] LEED-CERTIFIABLE POLICE HEADQUARTERS ADVANCES GREEN BUILDING IN DALLAS Dallas' new Jack Evans Police Headquarters was originally designed as a conventional building, but as a result of separate initiatives merging together, it is now the city's first LEED certifiable building. Shortly after the city approved the schematic design by Phillips Swager Associates, city project manager Robert Van Buren attended a seminar on the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system. He realized the project was within striking distance of LEED's base-level certification, largely due to site factors such as reclamation of a brownfield site, proximity to bus and rail transit, and the recycling of the adjacent parking garage. At the same time, the Dallas city manager's office was looking to support a sustainability demonstration building project. The result is a $55 million, six-story, 360,000-square-foot building that doesn't scream "green," but relies on enhancements to its building materials and systems to qualify for LEED's Silver certification. As a demonstration project, the project is a success: the city has since decreed that all its future buildings larger than 10,000 square feet must attain LEED's Silver certification or better. The LEED certification program itself appears to be a work in progress. One trend is that some owners have introduced a new term -- LEED certifiable, as opposed to LEED certified -- to designate a building that exemplifies the LEED guidelines without actually undergoing the LEED process. Texas Architect, p 37, Nov/Dec 2003, by Duncan Fulton. [More: http://www.dallascityhall.com/dallas/eng/pdf/ehs/JackEvansPoliceBldg.pdf ] MODEL APARTMENTS SHOWCASE GREEN INTERIORS IN RESIDENTIAL HIGH-RISE Designing an apartment to look good is every interior designer's aim, but simultaneously making it green is a less familiar matter. That was the challenge that M. Scott Marks and Tim Button of Stedila Design faced at the Solaire in Manhattan's Battery Park City, the country's first high-rise sustainable apartment building. "We didn't want sustainable to mean that it had to look one way," Marks explains. "So we came up with four different ways of looking at the interiors: traditional; modern; a look where we went with more ethnic ideas; and retro contemporary, which turned out to be very Danish looking." The retro contemporary apartment includes the Gotham Lounge chair designed by Peter Danko, made from sustainably harvested maple with straps of salvaged seat belts. The sofa is custom made by Furnature, with an FSC-certified hardwood frame, hemp canvas upholstery, and organically grown cotton batting. Drapery is from Cotton Plus, which resells closeouts and discontinued fabric -- all organically grown. The Ipanema chair, from King's Road Home, is made of abaca (a woven banana-leaf fiber). The coffee table, designed by Peter Abrams of Modern Metalworks, has a frame made of recycled elevator cable with a drop inset of recycled rubber tile. Metropolis, Nov 2003, p 118, by Paul Makovsky. 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