Blog

  This month, I’m excited to share with you the news that the U.S. Green Building Council’s new Washington, D.C., headquarters office has been certified LEED Platinum under the new version of LEED for Commercial Interiors, becoming the first LEED-certified project under a LEED 2009 rating system.  This past March, USGBC moved into our new office space, but our journey here has been interesting. When I started with the organization in 2003, we were located in a mid-block Class B building in downtown D.C., where we eventually expanded into three separate office suites totaling 11,000 square feet of space. After…

 This is not a new concept, but often overlooked in property development strategies, and in the organizational models that drive those development strategies.  As architects, we are experiencing fundamental shifts in practice – from climate change, major technology shifts, energy usage and costs, and the tools with which we practice. It is imperative that we develop deeper understanding of sustainable design principles, and as many jurisdictions and business leaders are instituting environmental, energy, and health related initiatives, we must raise the bar every day on our work.  When I took on the study of the USGBC’s LEED accreditation program a few…

With the launch of LEED for Retail just around the corner, I took the opportunity while in Chicago on other business to see for myself how restaurants are integrating green design into their facilities. This is interesting on several levels, both because restaurants are very energy intensive, and because the greening of design through major restaurant brands poses the opportunity to reach communities and consumers in a new and unique way. In some ways, green building has been an urban phenomenon, with advocates talking about how office buildings must be green if they still want to be considered Class A…

As CPN reported last week, the results of a new residential occupancy and closings study for Downtown Miami defy the perception that Miami’s urban core is a ghost town awash with empty condos. Conducted by independent research firm Goodkin Consulting/Focus Real Estate Advisors in partnership with the Miami Downtown Development Authority, the report surveyed 80 Downtown Miami buildings erected during the height of the boom and found that (1) a healthy majority of these units – 62% — are occupied by mainly full-time owners or renters, (2) occupancy and closing rates are trending upward, and (3) equilibrium is probable within…

    Kate Diamond, AIA, LEED AP, spoke with me this morning about whole building audits. Developers, building owners and occupants are all in a position to benefit from a holistic building audit. The whole building approach to energy usage and air quality optimizes assets and minimizes costs. In existing buildings, the assessment identifies where most energy is wasted, and allows building owners and tenants to develop alternatives and phased plans for optimization.   Humans thrive on exposure to daylight, views, and clean air. Strategies can be as simple as the use of low VOC paints on all renovations, to placing high walls perpendicular to windows, and…

  With a paucity of new capital coming into the system and many loans maturing, most property owners have limited options. In some cases the value of the property has fallen below or near the loan balance. Most lenders appear to be opting to extend with modest pay downs. This explains why fewer borrowers are refinancing. The option with the least friction for borrowers is to ask for a loan extension. These extensions differ from securitized loans and non-securitized loans. Borrowers who have securitized loans maturing must deal with special servicers. When the loan is likely to go into default…