Sustainability is here to stay, and in the commercial investment and operations business if you are not ‘green’ you most likely will not survive, nor thrive in 2010 and beyond. At Beacon Capital Partners, LLC and Jones Lang LaSalle the future is so bright the companies are wearing shades. The duo recently announced the world’s first Platinum LEED Certified multi-tenant building under the LEED for Existing Building: Operations & Maintenance (O&M) category at 550 West Washington Street in Chicago. The 10-year old asset owned by an affiliate of Beacon makes history as the first multi-tenant building to reach Platinum status.

“550 West Washington Street was developed as a high-performance building in the late 1990s, and this initiative raises the bar on what it means to be high-performance in the 21st Century,” said Fred Seigel, President and Chief Operating Officer of Beacon. "Platinum LEED certification is the ultimate proof that a building meets the most rigorous standards for energy and sustainability, and demonstrates Beacon’s commitment to sustainability throughout our portfolio.”

In the second quarter of 2008, JLL and Beacon conducted an analysis of 550 West Washington’s current energy efficiency and sustainable features, as well as steps necessary to achieve LEED certification. Achieving Platinum certification, the highest possible level, requires 68 LEED credits in areas such as energy and water efficiency, indoor air quality, use of sustainable building materials, tenant recycling and other sustainable features. The building's extremely high ENERGY STAR score was an important step toward LEED certification, as was proximity to public transportation and other existing features, including a state-of-the-art digital HVAC control system.

“With each new LEED-certified building, we get one step closer to USGBC’s vision of a sustainable built environment within a generation,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council. "As the newest member of the LEED family of green buildings, 550 West Washington is an important addition to the growing strength of the green building movement.” With Beacon’s decision to seek certification, the team registered the property on the USGBC web site and implemented a program to improve and optimize the building's efficiencies. Over the course of the next year and with minimal capital investment, they were able to rework building policies to ensure sustainable procedures, coordinate green activities with vendors and tenants, and conduct a full retro-commissioning of building systems to obtain a Platinum-eligible submission for LEED for Existing Buildings: O&M status. Among the benefits of these efforts are reduced utility costs and improvements in tenant comfort.

“CME Group is pleased to have supported 550 West Washington’s efforts to achieve LEED-EB O&M Platinum Certification as these efforts are in alignment with the company’s own sustainability goals and occupancy cost reduction efforts,” stated Kevin Lennon, Managing Director of Real Estate at CME Group.

Tenant involvement was an important element of Beacon and JLL's efforts. Many of 550 West Washington's tenants, including anchor tenant CME Group, regularly make sustainable decisions with respect to the construction of their tenant improvements and procurement of supplies. These decisions were critical in helping the building to achieve Platinum Certification.

“Beacon has proven that it is an environmentally responsible owner,” said Dan Probst, Chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle's Energy & Sustainability Services group. "550 West Washington is 95 percent occupied with long-term tenants. Beacon sought certification because it was the right thing to do.” To gain Platinum LEED for Existing Buildings: O&M certification, the Beacon/JLL team developed and implemented a strategy that included:

• Retro-commissioning the building systems to enhance energy performance.

• Sustainable purchases for more than 40% of the building supplies and materials, as well as 60% of the building cleaning products.

• Increasing use of sustainable maintenance products.

• Implementing green housekeeping, green landscaping, and integrated pest management programs.

• Implementing battery and electronic waste programs.

• Creating and delivering tenant education programs.

• Improved recycling rate from 32% over 70% diversion from landfill.

For years we have been reporting on ‘green’ and sustainability. For this columist, it equates to enlightenment, intelligence and rewards – both personal and financial. For commercial property owners and investors (and soon-to-be residential owners and investors), if you’re not sustainable, you’re not viable.

[Editor’s Note: The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED green building certification system is the foremost program for the design, construction and operation of green buildings. The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system is the preeminent program for the design, construction and operation of green buildings. 35,000 projects are currently participating in the LEED system, comprising over 5.6 billion square feet of construction space in all 50 states and 114 countries.]

Published: September 30, 2009

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Peter L. Mosca is president and founder of BAK Communications, Inc. He has over 22 years of communications and media consulting experience, serving a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the CCIM Institute and the REALTOR Association on all three levels – national, state and local. He is the Spokesperson Trainer for the CCIM's Jay Levine Academy and trains hundreds of residential REALTORS nationwide to be effective industry spokespeople. He is consistently ranked as "excellent" by about 90% of those who attend his presentations. While his principal consulting focuses are public speaking and media relations development and content delivery and management, Peter is also the host of the Voice America Network's weekly radio program, "Income Property Investment Talk," a one-hour program that brings the powerhouses of commercial and residential real estate to property investors every Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST. Peter is married 17 years to his wife Barbara. They have two children: Ashley, 15 and Kelli, 12. Hence, the name BAK Communications, Inc.