Build It

California Academy of Sciences

I had a chance to visit the California Academy of Sciences museum on Saturday and really liked this photo of the awning on the outside of the museum.  The glass is largely made up of solar panels which help generate a large part of the museum's power.  A great, and environmentally responsible San Francisco structure.

Green housing demand slows

MSNBC.com reported today that the slumping economy has slowed the development of "green" single family homes.  The drop in oil prices and the general worsening of the economy has made buyers less interested in low energy housing.

For many of the builders developing green housing, the reason seems to be the other type of green.  The sale of "green" homes gave them an advantage over their competitors.

"Encore" homes promised to slash electric bills by up to half, and buyers snapped them up even though Meritage (the developer) offered them at a higher price than nearby competitors."

"Sales figures in July showed that the Encore development sold 1.55 homes per week, compared with 0.88 homes per week for similar homes in the same city, Kramer said."

At an event in San Francisco a few weeks back, the developer of the Arterra building on King Street said that their decision to go green on their new structure did not necessarily mean they were able to demand higher rent/sale price.  He said the advantage was in marketing.

By having a green development, he was able to get more foot traffic, more phone calls and more general interest which led to a higher close percentage.  He estimated they were selling twice as many units per month than their competition.

When you come down to it, building green IS the responsible thing to do, but as you can see above, there are benefits to your bottom line as well, even if it doesn't come in the form of direct revenue.


Jared Willis

Green Building Growth

I'm at an event this morning about the future of development in 2009 and the current topic is about green building. I wanted to share a quick statistic for you about where green building is going. 

In 2006, the numbers for green building were $12 billion for new construction and $130 billion in renovation. 

In 2010, that number is projected to grow to $30-60 billion in new construction and $240 billion in renovations. 

Green is real, present and coming. For those who want to remain successful in reprographics, change your approach and the way you do business to match the market. 

Jared Willis

Just when you thought it was safe to print...

I've been putting together a few proposals over the past week, and have been going back to a great statistic that The Economist stated in 2000.

An article in the January 13th issue, in a piece titled "Virtual Construction", The Economist stated that a typical $100 Million project would generate 150,000 individual documents.  Read that last sentence again.  I'll wait.

Now take that number, and apply it to some of the larger projects in the market right now.  The three proposals I was writing this week were for $500 million, $600 million and $1.5 billion.  If we take The Economist's numbers, that means the projects would generate 750,000, 900,000 and 2.25 million documents respectively.  Again, take a second to think about that amount of information.

Here's some perspective.  If you took 2.5 million documents, and laid them end to end, they would go back and forth across the Golden Gate Bridge 592 times.  That's 710 MILES OF DOCUMENTS (both plans and specs).

Lastly, those numbers are if you print each document only once.  Anyone reading this blog certainly knows that you'll likely print most of the documents multiple times.  How much paper are you wasting then?

Construction is getting more complicated, and is generating more information these days, not less.  And there are real costs associated with printing waste.  If you're in Development/Construction, you need to be seriously thinking about what your company is doing to reduce printing and to become more efficient.

It adds up.

I recycled my heart in San Francisco...

San Francisco, long the home of earth-friendly liberals and hippies, has always been a leader in the promotion and application of green building ordinances and methods.  It should come as no surprise that this week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a measure that will require a minimum level of LEED certification for certain structures starting this year and increases the level/number of points you must achieve in the following years:

"The SF ordinance requires large projects--commercial and residential projects over 25,000 sf or 75 feet in height--to meet the base level of LEED certification starting in 2008. Large commercial projects would have to achieve LEED Silver certification starting in 2009 and LEED Gold starting in 2010. Large residential projects would have to achieve LEED Silver starting in 2010. Mid-sized buildings will be required to achieve three LEED credits or points (the basis for the rating system) starting in 2009, increase to seven points in 2012. Small and mid-size residential projects, starting in 2009, would be required to achieve 25 points from GreenPointRated, a rating system of BuildItGreen, a professional nonprofit membership organization that promotes energy- and resource-efficient buildings in California. The hurdle would increase to 50 points in 2010 and then 75 points in 2011 or 2012."

The City has already done a lot to encourage green building with expidited permitting for LEED projects, but this is the right step in developing a sustainable metropolis.

This will likely meet with a fair amount of resistance from the building/development community because of the added costs associated with going green.  The article estimates adding around 5% to the total building cost.  However, as can be easily demonstrated, the long term benefits and savings from building green far outweigh the initial extra cost.  However, this can be a difficult sell as many aren't willing to put up the short term cash, especially in a tight market like we have today.

The City hopes to achieve some pretty significant reductions in waste by 2012 including:

"reducing CO2 emissions by 60,000 tons; saving 220,000 megawatt hours of power; saving 100 million gallons of drinking water; reducing waste and storm water by 90 million gallons of water; reducing construction and demolition waste by 700 million pounds; increasing the valuations of recycled materials by $200 million; reducing automobile trips by 540,000; and increasing green power generation by 37,000 megawatt hours."

Link to article here

Community creation or housing greed?

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit a client on the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. This 5,200 acre ship building/repair facility was originally purchased by the Navy in 1865.  Decommissioned in 1996, it is now a mixture of dilapidated buildings of varying ages, industrial and retail operations and a slew of brand new homes.  Our client is a smaller developer working on-site to renovate one of the existing sites into office, retail and single family homes sites.

The site itself is incredible.  The sheer amount of land, the incredible history, the magnificent and towering structures and lastly, the possibility to create a connected community for residents, and not just tract housing.

When I asked our client about any planned retail on the site, he said that he thought they would be taking a plot the size of a school soccer field and putting some retail there.  When I asked if they'd put something as simple as a grocery store on-site, he told me it was unlikely and that he (who just bought a home on the island 100 yards from where we were meeting) had to drive to Napa to get his groceries.  That's a 30 minute drive without traffic just to go to a nice grocery store.

The developer has already built many beautiful home sites on Mare Island and it's obvious they are planning for many more.  My question becomes, is the developer interested in creating sustainable, walkable, livable communities where residents may rarely need a car and can find all their neccessities within a 10 minute walk?  Or, are they simply trying to maximize density to stuff as many homes on a lot as they possibly can?

I am a firm believer in urban redevelopment, but I don't think it's enough to take a site with that much potential and turn it into a bedroom community for San Francisco.  Regardless of the money you might make of such a plan, I believe it's irresponsible to build a community that forces you to leave to get the basic and not-so-basic services you require.  This particular site has only two entrance and exit points.  One exit is onto the 37 highway which is constantly backed up and not very accessible.  You can access the City of Vallejo right next door, but why should you even have to leave the island?

The developer should look to increase the value and marketability of their homes by developing essential services on-site within 5-10 mintue walks of all homes sites.  They should work with the City to provide libraries, public parks, Farmer's Markets, schools and recreation centers.  They should make the sidewalks larger, create expanses of open space, install bike racks on every corner and truly...I keep coming back to this...make a sustainable, connected  community.  That's the wave of the future for development.