Sustainable Development Focus
San Francisco Business Times - Jul 28 Kilroy Realty Corp. takes sustainability seriously. The Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust has developed the two most environmentally friendly office buildings in San Francisco. In 2014 and 2015, Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark named Kilroy the top real estate company across all asset classes on sustainability in North America. In an interview with Executive Vice President Mike Sanford and Senior Vice President of Sustainability Sara Neff, the San Francisco Business Times takes a look at why the developer is focused on LEED and how it is raising office building standards with its development. As Sarah Neff stated about Kilroy, “Sustainability is in our DNA and seen throughout the organization, not just in our construction or our building operations. It’s also a part of our leasing, HR and governance structures.”
San Francisco Business Times - Jul 28 Earlier this year, Atlanta-based Jamestown Properties sold the 145,400-square-foot 799 Market St. in San Francisco, turning a nice 48 percent return from the $96 million it paid in 2012. The building traded for a lofty $141.5 million or $973 per square foot, demonstrating the strong appetite for San Francisco office buildings as well as showcasing how a green retrofit drives up the value of a property. Jamestown completed several upgrades to the property such as reducing its energy use by 35 percent, thereby bringing down operating costs. “Energy efficiency is definitely a driver of value,” said Jacob Arlein, a partner with Stok, a San Francisco-based green building consulting firm, which worked on the 799 Market retrofit. Sustainability advocates have been preaching for years about the benefits of making buildings greener, but now owners are latching onto the business case for sustainability upgrades. In the last year or two, the market has shifted as more financing options have emerged. “Building owners are able to attract a higher-quality tenant by making these improvements, which I don’t think five years ago was necessarily true,” said Anthony Thompson, a commercial loan officer with United Business Bank in Oakland. “Now tenants, even in Class B buildings, are willing to pay to be green.” Another funding option is the Property Assessed Clean Energy program, which allows owners to pay back the cost of upgrades as part of their property tax bill for up to 20 years. “Many commercial property owners weren’t aware of PACE financing, and lenders weren’t aware they could finance the projects either,” said Joe Euphrat, managing director of CleanFund Commercial PACE Capital Inc. “We’re really seeing an acceleration of interest in the program.”
GreenBiz - Aug 17 Prologis, a real estate investment trust with $65 billion in assets under management and a market capitalization of $28 billion, controls 149 megawatts of solar generating capacity atop its global portfolio of warehouses and industrial facilities. That’s double the amount that it had at the end of 2011. A ranking tallied earlier this year by the Solar Energy Industries Association places Prologis second only to retailer Walmart in terms of capacity. For Prologis, the decision to invest in solar (something it has been doing for close to a decade) was financially motivated. It actually doesn’t use all that much power in its buildings, compared with commercial offices or retail space. The company views this as one way to generate more revenue from underused rooftops, said Jeannie Renné-Malone, Vice President of Global Sustainability for Prologis. Last year, Prologis earned green building certifications (under programs including both LEED and BREEAM) for 45 more projects, bringing the total so far to 68 million square feet across 173 projects.
Urban Land - Aug 16 Some thought it would never happen. Los Angeles, the land of historic orange groves, beaches, and car culture, has finally succumbed to the lure of dense urban living. The wave of suburban development that marked the many decades following World War II has given way to a 21st-century lifestyle long enjoyed in more traditional cities, such as Boston, New York, and San Francisco. What lessons does downtown L.A.’s resurgence hold for other U.S. cities? First, increasing residential densities is the key to igniting the engine of street-level retail growth. Second, projects in inner cities need to include publicly accessible mixed uses in their programs and are best served when located in a larger mixed-use neighborhood. Finally, proximity to public transit is critical in neighborhoods where car ownership and use are now declining.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune - Aug 20 Cities in Los Angeles County, like millions of private homeowners and dozens of large companies such as MillerCoors and Walmart before them, have been bitten by the solar bug. With prices of photovoltaic panels dropping more than 100-fold since the 1950s, combined with favorable laws encouraging renewable energy and independence from the grid, cities, counties, and schools are part of a late governmental rush to build solar energy projects. Besides favorable economics, cities like South Pasadena, Pasadena, Hermosa Beach, and Torrance, along with the Los Angeles County’s Office of Sustainability are studying a way for government entities served by Southern California Edison to buy their own power from more renewable energy sources and deliver it cheaper. In a July 28 report to the Board of Supervisors, a 16-month study concluded that a community choice aggregation program, called the Los Angeles Community Choice Energy entity “is financially feasible and would yield considerable benefits for all participating County residents and businesses.”
