Huntsman Architectural Group

2011-02-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

by Robin Bass, LEED AP
rbass@huntsmanag.com

As of January 1, 2011, the 2010 California Green Building Standards Code, or CALGreen, requires new building construction to reduce waste, improve water efficiency, and mitigate overall environmental impacts. In spite of its environmental intent, CALGreen is not without limitations. As so often with new legislation, and particularly in this era of fiscal constraints, there are few resources available to measure and enforce the new code. While it is a groundbreaking milestone as well as a national precedent, what does this legislation mean to owners, developers, and A/E/C professionals? In the short run, CALGreen raises the floor for sustainable design and construction. However, it does not address many of the challenges that need to be met in terms of reducing carbon emissions or streamlining the regulatory and third-party certification process.

[caption id="attachment_225" align="alignnone" width="625" caption="California's projected emissions and proposed targets, data developed by UC Berkeley"]

[/caption]: Projected Emissions and Potential Target Data, developed by UC Berkeley

An Interview with Victor Stein

2010-09-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

Victor Stein is a legend in New York interior design circles. In the late 1960s, he began working with his instructor from Boston University, Hans Krieks. They became partners in the 1970s with offices in New York and Boston. In the 1980s, he founded Planned Space Interiors in New York, which was one of the early design firms focused on commercial interiors. His designs were innovative in terms of planning and design. For example, his early retail shop for NBC took its cues from a television studio. One of his best known projects was the headquarters for Mercedes Benz of North America in Montvale, New Jersey. Mercedes was an innovator, with one of the first almost entirely open office landscapes in the United States, with custom-designed furniture that could be reconfigured for different uses. In the famed CBS headquarters building in New York City, Stein’s practice developed a plan for restacking 650,000 square feet of floors with minimal disruption.

Going to industry events with Victor means stopping every few feet and exchanging anecdotes and war stories from a long and varied career. He joined Huntsman Architectural Group last year to bring all this knowledge to our New York practice. We caught up with him between meetings a few weeks ago at the office on Wall Street.

Q: How did you get started in this business? What was your background?

Stein: I came from the ghetto. I was brought up on the lower east side of Manhattan by parents who were immigrants. My father was a furrier—his work was very seasonal. We were poor. But I excelled in math, and my geometry teacher steered me toward engineering. I applied to City College and got in.

The chairman of the engineering department called me into his office after the second or third week. He asked me what my background was, and I told him. He gave a list of supplies that we needed. I told him I was drafting on my kitchen table. He said, “You can’t do that. Do you have a book?” A book back then was about $25, and I said “No.” He says “You can’t do this.” I said “Well, I guess I’ll drop the class.” He said “You can’t, it’s Engineering 101. Here’s the book. Here’s everything. Get yourself a drafting table. Just a board. All you need is a board, and of course, a few knobs.”

At the end of the year, I gave him back everything. I said, “Why’d you do this?” And he said “Because I sympathize with you. I came from the same background.” I will never forget it.

But I hated engineering. So I switched over to architecture.

Q: How did you get into interior design?

Stein: I graduated at the tail end of the Vietnam War and was drafted. I never saw combat, thank God. After I got out, I went to work for architectural firms. I became friendly with a large firm of contractors in New York, and they said, “Did you ever think of interiors?” I didn’t even know what “interiors” meant.

I thought I’d try it. And I found there was more opportunity for advancement in interior design than in architecture—and much more opportunity to design. In architecture, it might have been forty years before I would have the chance to design a building. It’s a slow-moving process. In interiors, it moves much more quickly.

Q: How was Planned Space Interiors different from other interior design firms?

Victor Stein: Here’s an example. For one job we were pursuing, the person in charge was favoring a much larger corporate competitor. I went to see him, and he asked me, “So, what’s your company’s brand like?”

I said, “You just hit a major point. Did you like the projects the other firm showed you? That’s their brand—that’s what your office is going to look like. If you like that, then I would suggest you go with them. My brand, on the other hand, is your brand. You’re going to make it happen. I’m your consultant. I can only advise you in what direction you’re going, and how much it’s going to cost and give you a menu. The rest is your decision.”

And he sat back and said, “You got the job.”

I want clients to feel comfortable. I want them to enjoy the experience, and not make it a monster for them. We’re there to minimize disruption to the best of our ability.

Q: What are some of the most exciting projects you worked on?

Stein: When I was working with Hans Krieks Associates, we won a national competition for the Mercedes Benz Northern Hemisphere Headquarters, in Montvale, New Jersey, which was the first open plan in the United States. It housed 600 people and it had six executive offices and about four conference rooms. There was no systems furniture to speak of in those days, so we designed all the office furniture ourselves. They didn’t want the usual rectangular desks, because they felt that the edges of the desk were wasted—everybody just tends to stack paper there. They wanted trapezoidal desks with files underneath, so people could only have room for their current work on the desk. Typical German efficiency.

That job gave me an education. I spent three years on it, and it was just incredible. We designed all of the electric and communications components on a five-foot-wide module throughout, so that at any time, one section could be transferred to another, or added to, and all the components were already there. You just had to plug it in. That was the first application of that kind of modular approach, as far as I know.

Q: What else?

Stein: The New York Life Building was another one. New York Life was using all of its tower building for its employees, and they decided that their property was worth too much to do that. So they moved half the employees out to Westchester and asked us to split the building so they could rent half out. That meant a new infrastructure. Elevators had to be set aside for their tenants, air conditioning and power had to be split, and we had to meet all kinds of ADA regulations. That was a major undertaking, with a lot of consultants to manage. The project took three years.

Then there was the NBC Boutique in Rockefeller Center on Fifth Avenue in New York City. We designed a retail store for NBC in the lobby, using mirror, plastic laminate, and chrome for the fixtures, and bronze and glass sliding lobby doors. The NBC peacock logo is illuminated so its colors reflect off the ceiling. The Rockefeller Center’s architectural and design guidelines were very strict, so we had to do a lot of negotiating between the building owner and NBC.

Q: What has changed in the industry since you started out?

Stein: The technology may have changed, but the core design process hasn’t. What’s different is that a lot of the work today is being given out by developers. It used to be that most of our work came from referrals from end users and brokers. Now, because the real estate industry has been hit so hard by the economy, developers are paying for architecture, engineering, and interior design services as part of the lease package to entice new tenants. The end users have changed, too. They’re more conscious about spending money.

Q: Are they more conscious of design than they used to be?

Stein: Depends on the client. Some want a vanilla type of project, others want upscale design in some areas—the lounge, reception area, elevator lobby, restrooms. I’d say it’s a 50-50 split.

Q: Are you beginning to see a recovery?

Stein: Slowly. People are starting to move to new office space again, or improve the space they’re in. It’s a cautious recovery. Very cautious.

Repositioning the Commercial Office Building

2010-04-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

Part One: San Francisco
by Sascha Wagner, IIDA CID LEED AP
swagner@huntsmanag.com

During economic downturns, competition among building owners for office tenants usually becomes fierce. It’s a function of simple math: More properties are competing for fewer tenants. Down-cycles in the market can be an opportunity for building owners to take advantage of lower construction costs and improve their properties with the aim of attracting high quality tenants. However, the challenge is to make the right moves to meet the needs of the leasing market, taking into account the building’s location, amenities, floor plans, as well as its competitors. While tenants may be looking for serious bargains in the current economic climate, the choice is never just about money—they are also looking for the right home for their company. Repositioning is about giving a building a lease on life – creating a new identity that will give tenants the quality and cachet they’re looking for.

Lack of maintenance can leave any commercial building looking worse for wear. But even well-designed and maintained buildings can begin to appear dated over time. Take the case of San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center West at 275 Battery Street. Designed by John Portman in the 1980s as an extension of Embarcadero Center, the high-rise’s public spaces had lost some of their original elegance with the passage of time. Recent vacancies on multiple floors created opportunities for the owners to lease large swaths of space. However, a bit of a makeover was required. Making the building attractive to contemporary tenants—with the legal profession particularly in mind—involved remodeling the lobby, elevator cabs, and elevator lobbies to give the building a modern, unified visual identity.

275 Battery Street before and after its building lobby remodel, completed in 2008 (photography: Sharon Risedorph)

In other cases, the building may never have had a strong visual identity – perhaps due to local adjacency planning criteria – which can provide an opportunity to create one. 100 Van Ness was built in the 1980s as a slab-style high-rise with a fairly nondescript character. It’s currently undergoing a repositioning effort that involves transforming the building lobbies and elevators. In this case, the main entrance lobby is being “pulled outside” to make a visual statement on an otherwise blank exterior.

A proposed lobby redesign for 100 Van Ness will increase prominence of the building entry.

Real estate brokers play a key role in working with building owners to reposition buildings - not only helping refine the target market, but also advising whether the floor plates are the right size or offer the right flexibility for the desired tenant group. Sometimes architectural interventions are necessary to adapt the structure. 123 Townsend (The Townsend Building), a historic building in San Francisco’s multimedia gulch, has 21,000-square-foot floor plates that were served by only two staircases. In repositioning the building, the design team collaborated with the brokers and proposed adding a third stair, which would enable the floor plates to be divided into thirds. Each floor can now be leased in 7,000-, 14,000-, or 21,000-square-foot blocks. This added flexibility for future growth was appealing to the targeted audience of young technology companies just starting out—they could begin with a 7,000-square-foot piece and expand in increments as their business grew. Upgrading the building’s capacity to handle significant technology infrastructure, and remodeling the lobbies were also part of the effort. After the repositioning, the brokers leased the entire building to multiple tenants within a year.

The lobby at 123 Townsend (118 King) creates an urban loft-like entrance for the building's creative tenants.

Developing a long-term plan for adding green design elements to a building can go a long way toward attracting tenants in the technology creative fields, for whom sustainability is often a significant part of their identity. The repositioning of 634 Second Street involved the development of sustainability criteria and a long-term strategy for meeting LEED for Existing Buildings requirements, as well as remodeling part of the façade, adding a new passenger elevator and roof deck, and upgrading the lighting, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing systems. With these new features added, ServiceSource, a service performance management company, leased all three floors. Other sustainable strategies that can make buildings stand out include bicycle parking areas and sub-metering for electricity, which allows each tenant to reap the benefits of their own energy conservation measures.

634 Second Street's new roof deck provides its ServiceSource tenants an outdoor amenity and green space.

Repositioning does not have to be comprehensive or expensive. Instead of replacing the stone in a lobby, for example, adding area rugs, draperies, and new signage and directories can provide a fresh look. Perhaps the guard desk can be resurfaced instead of replaced. Installing new energy-efficient bulbs can reduce electricity consumption and offer improved lighting quality at a fraction of the cost of replacing entire light fixtures. In some cases, costs for systems upgrades can even be rolled into ongoing maintenance budgets. Regardless of the scope of upgrades, any repositioning effort should be done strategically and with expert advice. Getting a building filled with tenants by spending money on improvements can certainly be seen as a chicken-and-egg scenario. But spending money wisely can pay big dividends down the road.

Part Two of "Repositioning the Commercial Office Building" will look at some specific repositionings in New York.

Sascha Wagner, IIDA CID LEED AP is a Principal at Huntsman Architectural Group and has assisted building owners and real estate developers with building repositioning projects in the Bay Area.

Energy Benchmarking

2010-01-28T08:37:00.000-08:00

How Green Is Transforming Lease Partnerships in San Francisco
by Robin Bass, LEED AP
rbass@huntsmanag.com

In the summer of 2009, the City and County of San Francisco, with support from its Department of the Environment, formed the Existing Commercial Buildings Task Force, which comprises building owner representatives, real estate professionals, facility managers, and building consultants. Mayor Gavin Newsom convened the group to continue to build upon the momentum generated by the Green Building Task Force for New Construction, which developed the City's priority permitting process for buildings submitted for LEED certification. Recognizing that new construction represents a small part of the overall building inventory in San Francisco, addressing the stock of existing buildings is a critical first step in reducing the city's carbon footprint. The task force's assignment was to recommend strategies and solutions for training, information tools, incentives and cost effective requirements as a first step in establishing a baseline energy usage for commercial buildings. In its fall 2009 final report, the task force has developed a strategy that supports San Francisco's goal of reducing total energy use in existing commercial buildings 50% by the year 2030.

Summary of the ECB Task Force's Proposal
The report's seven proposals will reduce energy use in existing buildings and stimulate the energy efficiency services sector by systematically identifying and eliminating the factors that limit local energy efficiency through the following measures:

One:
• Identify savings in every commercial building by requiring businesses to conduct an energy audit every 5 years for business license renewal.
• The energy audit will include identifying and listing applicable efficiency measures.
• This will ensure that building owners, managers, and tenants know exactly how much energy and money they can save through efficiency measures.

Two:
• Disclose energy performance information by requiring building owners and managers to share energy data with the City.
• This data will be published to inform stakeholders.
• Monitoring and reporting provides a “miles per gallon” metric that enables tenants and buyers to identify efficient buildings.

Three:
• Resolve “split incentives” that exist between tenants and landlords around industry standard lease language by providing a “Green Tenant Toolkit” and making sub-metering of tenant spaces a priority.
• Landlords and tenants will mutually benefit from reduced utility costs and sustainable operations.

Four:
• Make incentives accessible through development of a Web-based tool that finds all incentives, rebates, and available financing for energy efficiency projects.
• This will help offset the costs of energy efficiency improvements and streamline payment of incentives.

Five:
• Educate, train, mentor, and market energy efficiency through promotion of programs, facilitating mentorship and partnering with institutions to enhance workforce capacity and engage stakeholders to improve energy efficiency.

Six:
• Lead by example in public facilities by benchmarking and disclosing energy performance of City-owned and operated buildings.
• The City’s leadership will inspire others to act.

Seven:
• Provide financing through the launching of the SF Clean Energy Loan Program.
• Financing enables cost-effective energy use reductions through voluntary tax liens.

What Is the Impact?
Currently, there is little information available that indicates how commercial buildings are performing and how they can be improved to increase performance. As of January 1, 2010, the State of California will require, through AB 1103, that building owners disclose the energy use intensity and available ENERGYSTAR rating for all nonresidential real estate transactions. For San Francisco, the ECB Task Force proposes that disclosure occur for all nonresidential buildings, whether or not they are subject to a sale or lease transaction. In addition, energy performance summary data will be disclosed to the City and made accessible to the public. What this means for current and prospective tenants is that a specific building's energy use becomes a lease consideration just like a building amenity.

Under new ownership, 275 Battery Street received an interior renovation, as well exterior upgrades, as part of a rebranding of the ENERGYSTAR labeled property.

With resources becoming more finite, benchmarking will provide the necessary information in order to gradually meet targets for carbon reduction by the 2030 deadline. As the ECB Task Force timeline suggests, building owners and operators will not only need to be aggressive in acquiring information about energy usage but also in pursuing suitable methods for improvement. The focus of efficiency upgrades should be on the "low-hanging fruit"—the ones with the biggest impact for the smallest investment. No one is expecting to see a wind farm on the roof of an office building!

Change in the Form of New Relationships
From an energy efficiency standpoint, the tenant/landlord relationship is not a mutual one. Many times the "split incentive" in rent structures overcomes any motivators on either side of the table to make a positive change in the efficiency of the building. Using "green" lease language will redirect the relationship and allow both parties to work together as co-owners of the building for the term of the lease to make the building perform better. Tenants benefit from having lower utility bills and more control over what has traditionally been a fixed cost rolled into their rent. Landlords will profit from having an equitable financial partner to help offset the costs of building system upgrades that will ultimately increase the building's property value.

Later in 2010, the ECB Task Force will form a committee to develop the City's Green Tenant Toolkit—a document which will educate involved parties about lease language, facility features, and operational practices that align the interest of tenants and landlords to build, maintain, and operate their spaces more sustainably. The Toolkit will include recommendations for best practices, a model green lease, and a checklist to identify green features of spaces for lease.

Increased Efficiency Requires Investment
As the ECB Task Force was researching available incentives and rebates, the committee identified more than 300 existing programs that will subsidize upgrade costs. Finding the rebates and streamlining the process to get the funding into the hands of owners and tenants has traditionally been a hurdle. The development of a "rebate finder" web tool will help inform those that stand to benefit the most from the programs already in place and will also help promote new programs that come online as a result of the task force's outreach and promotion. With these resources coming online, and with the City's mandate to be the leader for all of these proposals, there will be an increasing body of case studies, success stories, and "lessons learned." Dissemination of this information to the commercial real estate stakeholders closes the circle and allows the task force to modify the process as needed.

Robin Bass, LEED AP is a Senior Associate of Huntsman Architectural Group and served as an ECB Task Force member.

The NYC Greener, Greater Buildings Plan

2009-12-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

A Quick Overview

by Annemarie Kretschmann

In New York City, building operations alone generate about 80 percent of the city’s overall carbon emissions. That’s a lot of carbon.

The mayor and the city council proposed the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan earlier this year to help the city attain its goal of achieving a 30 percent reduction in its annual greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2030. The city council passed the initiative on December 9. The measure includes a provision that would require owners of all buildings larger than 50,000 square feet to pay for energy audits of those properties. About 23 percent of the city’s 95,000 buildings are larger than 50,000 square feet. This is important news for building owners and operators in New York.

The initiative also makes the energy code stricter, requires buildings to undergo a yearly benchmarking of overall efficiency, and mandates lighting upgrades in large buildings. Owners must also give each tenant data about individual electricity consumption. Knowing how much energy they use often leads tenants to reduce consumption.

Photograph courtesy of Armel Nano.

The measure initially contained a provision that required building owners to pay for energy efficient retrofits based on the results of the audits. Under pressure from property owners, however, the mayor dropped the requirement to make those retrofits, although the other provisions are still mandatory (“Bloomberg Drops an Effort to Cut Building Energy Use,” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/science/earth/05bloomberg.html?_r=1). One objection property owners raised to that requirement was that some leases do not allow building owners to pass on the upfront costs of retrofitting to tenants. As the measure stands, owners can decide for themselves which changes to undertake in response to the energy audits.

Benchmarking of commercial real estate will be performed using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool, which is also used for the Energy Star performance rating system. The resulting energy use index will be expressed in BTU/gross square foot, and is proposed to be listed each year on the tax assessment roll. Energy audits today in NYC are costing approximately $0.10 to 0.20/square foot and typically start with a building walk-through, EPA measurement calculations, utility use analysis, building use analysis, capital project review, documentation review, and a resulting report which costs $0.50 to 0.70/square foot and provides three levels of recommendations—zero cost, moderate cost, and capital cost improvements—as well as forecast payback periods.

For more information about Huntsman Architectural Group, visit HuntsmanAG.com.