Originally Posted on Monday, October 16, 2006
Several projects have been proposed lately in South Florida as "Green Developments" according to the Miami Herald. They include: A Green Library in Pembroke Pines, an office building in West Palm Beach called Ecoplex, a 39-story office building called Brickell Financial Center at 600 Brickell Ave. and a 13-story office condo in Miami called Miami Green.
So what makes a building "Green"? Well to start with it needs to get the LEED Certificaiton designating that it meets the requirements for a Green building...these include anything from mesures taken to reduce the amount of energy that the building uses to measures that enable the building to produce lest waste. Some examples are white roofs that deflect the sun's energy, lights that turn off automatically when nobody is in the room and even gathering rain water to be recycled in the air conditioning system.
The bad news is that it costs more to construct a Green building than it does to build a traditional one.
The upside is that over time the building will save it's owners money by being more energy efficient. According to the article, builders claim that a Green building will cost 1/3 less than a traditional building to operate. This translates into far more savings over the long term
than could be saved at the beginning by not going Green.
This means that going Green is great for owners of buildings, but what does that mean for condo developers who typically construct the building and then are completely out of it, transfering ownership of the building to the condo association? The article states that the is a deterrent for many condo developers. But I do not agree...even though a condo developer will not benefit directly from the long-term savings, they can easily pass on the Green costs and get an edge on marketing if they promote their new building as "Green". Owners will be happy to pay more if they clearly understand how much they will be saving over the long term.
So what makes a building "Green"? Well to start with it needs to get the LEED Certificaiton designating that it meets the requirements for a Green building...these include anything from mesures taken to reduce the amount of energy that the building uses to measures that enable the building to produce lest waste. Some examples are white roofs that deflect the sun's energy, lights that turn off automatically when nobody is in the room and even gathering rain water to be recycled in the air conditioning system.
The bad news is that it costs more to construct a Green building than it does to build a traditional one.
The upside is that over time the building will save it's owners money by being more energy efficient. According to the article, builders claim that a Green building will cost 1/3 less than a traditional building to operate. This translates into far more savings over the long term
than could be saved at the beginning by not going Green.
This means that going Green is great for owners of buildings, but what does that mean for condo developers who typically construct the building and then are completely out of it, transfering ownership of the building to the condo association? The article states that the is a deterrent for many condo developers. But I do not agree...even though a condo developer will not benefit directly from the long-term savings, they can easily pass on the Green costs and get an edge on marketing if they promote their new building as "Green". Owners will be happy to pay more if they clearly understand how much they will be saving over the long term.
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