|
|
|
|
NewsOwners and Developers Across Real Estate Sectors See Green as Must-HaveNovember 16, 2007 San Diego, CA - On Tuesday, November 13, the Urban Land Institute San Diego/Tijuana District Council held its annual Trends Conference to discuss the "dollars, sense and leadership of sustainability." In a panel discussion addressing sustainability trends for major property types, moderated by Sarah Gardner of American Public Media's Marketplace, panelists revealed that developers and owners of property types throughout real estate now consider green buildings a must-have. Most have found that developing a green building comes with just a two percent cost premium, but Renee Worme, sustainability manager for Gerding Elden, a company that has been developing green buildings since 1996, says her firm does so with no additional premium paid. "The cost depends upon level of experience and the baseline," she said. "The learning curve does cost initially." Starwood Hotels and Resorts senior vice president Jim Alderman said that his company struggled with the decision about whether to alert their competitors about their decision to build green luxury hotels, but then decided that, ultimately, they want their competitors to copy their decision. "We're one of the last hold-out industries," he said. "Guest don't choose their hotel for green qualities because they can't. There are only six green hotels in the country." Jonathan Bradhurst, senior vice president of US development for Westfield Corporation, said that though his company is committed to green building, it was not their decision to make San Diego's University Town Center Mall green. "We didn't set out to make UTC green, but we listened to our customers," he said. "We did extensive polling, and green issues were our customers' number one concern, followed by daylighting as number two." Matt Lituchy, managing director for Jay Paul Company, which has a major office building development underway in Rancho Bernardo, said his company was initially attracted to the trend of building green by public agency incentives. "Sunnyvale, Calif. was giving incentives for green building and transit-oriented development," he said. "Incentives were the biggest motivation, but now we feel that green is a must-have. The high-tech community wants green buildings for higher profitability." All panelists agreed that the recent California Assembly Bill 32, the global warming solutions act, will influence more developers to build green. "People resisted Title 24 standards at first," said Lituchy, "but it's a way of life now, and AB32 will be similar."
About ULI # # # |
||
