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HowToPlatinum.com: Momentum Bay® helps Texas Developer Jacob White Achieve Triple LEED® Platinum
HowToPlatinum.com: Momentum Bay® helps Texas Developer Jacob White Achieve Triple LEED® Platinum
In late 2010, three Jacob White real estate developments achieved LEED Platinum certification, ranking Jacob White, Adobe and Hines as the only three private developers, owners and/or managers globally to have earned three or more Platinum certifications. Headquartered south of Houston, Texas since 1992, Jacob White is one of the world’s leading sustainable real estate innovators, providing integrated, healthy, high performance green building development, design, construction and management.
Houston,
Texas,
United States
(pr4links.com)
11/01/2011
Houston, TX, January 04, 2011 -- Wrapping up a great 2010, Momentum Bay recently helped local real estate firm Jacob White secure the U.S. Green Building Council's rare LEED Platinum certification for three Jacob White green buildings: 12941 Gulf Freeway in Houston, 253 Medical Center Boulevard in Webster, and its headquarters at 2000 West Parkwood in Friendswood, all just south of Houston, Texas near NASA.
Globally, Adobe Corporation, Hines and Jacob White Construction are the only companies to have achieved at least three LEED Platinum certified projects (see FACT SHEET below for all organizations with two or more LEED Platinums).
Notably, Jacob White’s headquarters is the first LEED for Core & Shell 2009 certified in the world. And, the Gulf Freeway office center is the world’s third highest scoring LEED CS 2.0.
Of the world’s 7,321 LEED certified green building projects, Gold certification is the most popular, but fewer than 400 have achieved the LEED Rating System’s highest level Platinum, that is, 5.4% by project count and 4.7% by gross square feet (as of November 2010). Texas is home to roughly three percent of the LEED Platinum projects in the U.S. by square feet and project count. Roughly 60 million square feet (397 projects) have achieved LEED Platinum certification globally and nearly 40 million of those square feet (351 projects) are in the United States.
Fortunately, the real estate industry’s cumulative experience over the past 13 years on 12,600+ ENERGY STAR labeled buildings (2+ billion square feet), and 7,300+ LEED certified projects (1.3 billion sq. ft.) has nearly eliminated the former premium for sustainable real estate. Almost 30,000 more LEED projects totaling 6 billion square feet are pursuing accepted best practices as registered projects in the green building pipeline.
Prior to its LEED certification, the Gulf Freeway / Kurland Office building earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s rare “Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR®” (DEES) certification - placing it among only 250 others with this certification in the U.S. and among the nation’s top four percent of buildings designed for energy efficiency.
Each of the three LEED Platinum Jacob White buildings has received ENERGY STAR Target Finder scores of 94 to 96 out of 100, placing their intended energy performance among those of the top four to six percent of comparable buildings.
Jacob White’s expanding green building portfolio is a project of President, CEO and technology enthusiast Jeff Mickler. Jeff’s wife and business partner Holly Mickler said, “For Jeff, green building is simply good business. It’s fun and feels right as parents, good neighbors and business owners.”
Joe Webb, the projects’ lead architect with Webb Architects said, “Jeff is a true innovator, yet very practical and hands-on. He challenges teams to do their best work, designing award-winning high-performance environments for generations to come.
“The challenge on projects like these for many teams has been the learning curve related to auditing and documenting intended performance. Working at the cutting edge – pushing the limits of LEED and ENERGY STAR – makes it difficult to know where we would end up. It wasn’t easy, but it was definitely fun.”
Sustainability consultant and energy management advisor Mark Robinson at Momentum Bay (www.momentumbay.com) said, “Jeff has a great team that works well together. While his team stayed focused on design and construction, he retained Momentum Bay’s team of experts – particularly Green Building Services – for all energy modeling and LEED documentation.” GBS managed the publication of the LEED 2009 Rating System Guides, and has consulted on roughly five percent of all LEED certified projects globally.
“We have always built, owned and managed healthier, more resource efficient buildings,” said Jeff Mickler. “The most successful green building rating systems -- LEED and ENERGY STAR – happen to give us globally recognized, meaningful scorecards and metrics, helping us benchmark our buildings’ design and performance.”
Dr. Norm Miller’s and CoStar’s longitudinal real estate study entitled “Does Green Pay Off?” shows a clear market advantage for developers and owners of LEED and ENERGY STAR certified buildings: certifications yield consistently higher rents, lower cap rates / higher sales prices, higher occupancy rates and faster absorption.
Jacob White’s experience confirms CoStar’s research. These three LEED Platinum buildings’ innovative, certified combination of visible green features – green roofs, rainwater catchment, outdoor views, and even some wind turbines – along with healthier, resource efficient strategies have yielded faster rental velocity, higher occupancies and even traffic jams by passers by.
Sustainability strategist Robinson said, “What makes a green building hot is similar to what makes a hybrid vehicle hot. According to Business Week, the Toyota Prius’ radically new driving experience and visibly green design drove sales five to seven times faster than those of other hybrids. Similarly, Jacob White’s radical, visible, authentic approach to green building stops traffic and really makes sense. Two of the three buildings are 100 percent leased even in a down economy and in the suburbs.”
Beyond the visible features, two green building strategies are paramount to Jacob White: 1) ensuring a healthy, productive environment for occupants, and 2) reducing long-term operating costs through energy efficiency.
Energy modeling and ENERGY STAR’s Target Finder tool confirmed both. Jacob White’s three buildings are projected to prevent 30% to 54% more greenhouse gas emissions than conventionally designed commercial offices and medical office buildings, and use 30% to 54% less energy, saving more than $2,126,250 on utility bills over the next 25 years.”
Mickler said, “We are delighted to have achieved such high scores for exemplary design from the USGBC’s and ENERGY STAR’s green building programs. We are already pursuing ongoing certifications of these buildings’ performance via ENERGY STAR labeling and LEED for Existing Buildings Operations & Maintenance certification.”
Jacob White recognizes that designing, building and operating healthy, sustainable real estate requires a combination of green building strategies: not only energy efficiency, but also conservation and especially green power, starting early with offsite utility green energy and graduating to onsite generation.
For example, in 2007, Jacob White began purchasing 100% Green-e certified utility green electricity through GREEN POWER 4 TEXAS (www.greenpowerbroker.com), Momentum Bay’s full-service energy advisory division. Since then, Jacob White has joined the EPA Green Power Partnership as a 100% Purchaser, and became a member of its Leadership Club.
Contact:
Mark Robinson
Momentum Bay Associates, LP
1177 West Loop South
Suite 500
Houston, Texas 77027
281-451-3841
media@momentumbay.com
http://www.HowToPlatinum.com
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