2000 Tower Oaks Blvd: DC Area’s Healthiest Building

by Lori Hill

As I approached 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard to attend the 2012 Bethesda Green Gala, I grew excited about finally experiencing this LEED® Platinum office building which has won countess awards and proclamations.  The Tower Companies and Lerner Enterprises, the companies responsible for the building and Gala host sponsors, refer to it as the healthiest building ever built. Why?

2000 Tower Oaks Blvd at dusk.

First off, it is one of two office buildings in Maryland to achieve LEED® Platinum certification, the highest honor that the U.S. Green Building Council can bestow.  The other building is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Philip Merrill Environmental Center in Annapolis. Tower and Lerner have purchased wind energy to meet 100% of the building’s energy needs and the building’s efficient design reduces energy usage by 28% and reduces water consumption by 41%.  But that is just the beginning.

Building amenities include a green roof and a café that serves organic food.  Similar to other office buildings, it has a state-of-the-art 2,500 square foot fitness center with flat screen TVs, showers and lockers.  But unlike others, it has something I’ve never seen before:  a Pilates/yoga/meditation room.

Other features that make the building stand out are its LEED® green building practices and Fortune-Creating (sm) Vedic Architecture principles of orientation, placement, central core and proportion.  These principles combine to improve occupant health, well-being, performance, success, clarity and imagination.  Wouldn’t every employer want this for their employees to ensure optimum productivity?  The healthier building reduces sick time and increases worker retention.  How?  The superior indoor air quality is due to a three-stage outside air filtration system that removes 95% of airborne pollutants, recycles air every 51 minutes, and maintains a steady, comfortable temperature.  In addition, better lighting and thermal control, combined with the high air quality, increase productivity and enhanced cooperation among workers.  The generous access to natural daylight throughout the building doesn’t hurt either.  In fact, one worker commented, “I feel energized. I am able to concentrate on my task for the day more. The stress of a work day doesn’t get to me like it used to. The natural sunlight and view makes a difference, and makes me calm and happy.”

View of the lobby

If you are a company looking for new office space, you might want to consider 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard because green buildings improve employee productivity.  This building has the added feature of improving tenants’ health based on its innovative system and building design.  Companies can lower their operating costs by improving productivity, health and fostering a corporate culture that engenders loyalty which lowers employee turnover cost. The Tower Companies and Lerner Enterprises also take pride in the fact that the building is operated in a green manner through green cleaning and other operational practices.

So what prompted Tower and Lerner to build such a green building?  Nearly 17 years ago Jeffrey Abramson, one of the owners of The Tower Companies, realized that buildings contributed 40% of all greenhouse gases and decided the real-estate business needed to take responsibility for their impact on the environment.  Therefore, he realized that every new building needed to be green.  In 1994 The Tower Companies completed the Blair Towns, the first LEED® certified multifamily building in the country. Lerner Enterprises’ dedication to green was also part of its corporate culture since the design and construction of its now LEED® Gold Certified 20 M Street.

Office space

The original goal at 2000 Tower Oaks was to build a LEED® Gold building, but as the project progressed it became apparent that the developers had nearly enough points for Platinum.  With the help of building contractor Whiting Turner, Tower and Lerner made some decisions to achieve every point they could.  Some choices were easy such as designating parking for hybrid and fuel efficient vehicles. Other choices required design and some innovation.  For example, rather than using regular tap to water the grass, they did the job by collecting condensate from the air conditioning and some natural under slab drainage. These choices, along with some energy efficiency improvements, made the difference.

The biggest challenges with constructing a LEED® Platinum building was making sure that everyone knew that it was their responsibility to make it happen.  Everything needs to go right and everyone needs to be involved. The designer has to offer material choices that are sustainable, the project managers on the owners’ side need to ask the questions during design meetings.  The owners must realize that some design choices might be limited by materials. Today, sustainable material choices are much easier to obtain than they were 5 years ago.  Once the building is under construction, the contractor and all the craftspeople must know their role in ensuring the correct materials are used as specified in the drawings.  The key to overcoming this challenge is starting to work with an integrated design and construction team from the beginning.

For more information about the healthiest building in Washington, visit the 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard website.

Lori Hill is the Go to Gal for Green Living.  Visit her website at www.lorihillinc.com.

 

LEED 2012: Leading the Changes in the Green Building Industry

by Peter Doo

How do you drive an entire industry to build “green,” sustainable buildings? The US Green Building Council (USGBC), with its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, set the standard for building green. Through LEED, a green building can be rewarded an official certification. This certification incentivizes building owners, designers and contractors to look beyond energy savings to make a building that helps and does not harm its users, site, community and the earth.

Now USGBC is setting a new bar for the industry with LEED 2012.

LEED has often been criticized for not producing the results that it touts. While some of this criticism is justified, the USGBC has consistently responded with new requirements and updates (energy reporting for example) to address many of those criticisms. Meanwhile, the larger and undeniable impact of LEED has been in the transformation of the marketplace of products and services to make true sustainability more accessible to everyone. LEED 2012 promises to keep us all moving in that direction.

Some cities, counties and states have mandated LEED for new buildings in their jurisdictions. Projects pursuing certification under LEED 2012 will definitely find it more challenging to achieve the same ratings they received under the prior systems, LEED v2.2 and LEED 2009. Municipalities will have to determine whether they keep their mandate and escalate their sustainability goals with LEED 2012, or whether they relax or eliminate their mandate altogether.

What are some of the changes in the new LEED 2012? Several of the available credits in the Materials & Resources category, for example, require the disclosure and/or avoidance of chemical toxins in building products and materials. While this is likely to be an area of some controversy if adopted, this is where the next market transformative impact of LEED is likely to be.

On the energy efficiency side, the new referenced standard is ASHRAE 2010. This represents a significant increase in energy efficiency targets that project teams should be aware of.

What other changes are coming? How will it affect the industry as a whole and the Mid-Atlantic region in particular? And how do building owners and professionals navigate this shift? These questions and more will be addressed at a special event on Tuesday, June 12th in Bethesda, Maryland, “Anticipating the Changes and Challenges of LEED 2012,” a Natural Capital Series event. For more information and to register, go to http://naturalcapitalLEED2012.eventbrite.com.

Peter Doo, FAIA, President of Doo Consulting, LLC is a sustainability consultant with over 30 years of experience in building design and construction. Peter is a LEED AP and founder of the USGBC Maryland Chapter. Doo Consulting provides services to guide, coordinate and administrate the LEED certification process for all LEED rating systems. For more information, visit www.dooconsulting.net.

 

Green News & Events, January 23, 2012

by Dan Rudt                                                                                                                       

Strong LEED Numbers for DC, Virginia and Maryland

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) on January 19 released data on the 10 states (plus the District of Columbia) with the largest square footage per capita of commercial and institutional building space to earn LEED certification in 2011. DC was included on the list because it outranked all the leading states, and did so by a healthy margin. The District came in with 31.5 square feet of LEED certified building space per person. In contrast, the top 10 states all ranged between 2.74 and 1.81 square feet per person.

The local area was well represented on the list. In addition to the District’s leading performance, Virginia ranked third among the states and Maryland fifth. The other top five states were Colorado and Illinois, first and second, and Washington State, placing fourth. “This is a great accomplishment for the D.C. metropolitan region and a testament to the drive, commitment and leadership of all those who live, work and play in our community,” said Mike Babcock, board chair of the National Capital Region Chapter of USGBC. “We also realize there is still more to do and hope to effectively guide the effort by engaging, educating and encouraging the dialogue around the value of sustainability.”

In terms of the total square footage of commercial and institutional building space earning LEED certification in 2011, as opposed to the per capita figures, DC came in with more than 18.5 million, Virginia with 19.4 million and Maryland just under 12 million square feet.

Starting a Small Farm in Maryland

For anyone interested in starting a small scale farm or for farmers interested in improving their skills, this is for you. 

University of Maryland Extension, Baltimore County has partnered with Future Harvest – Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, and the Maryland Agricultural Resource Council to offer a workshop series to learn about starting and operating a successful, intensive small farm. Workshops start January 31 and are held at University of Maryland Extension in Cockeysville.

The focus of this series is on small-scale, fruit and vegetable production using conventional, sustainable and organic methods. The program is open to all and is taught by farmers and knowledgeable university faculty. Participants will learn marketing, production and business skills necessary to become successful market farmers. The $40 fee covers the entire workshop series. Please register by January 25. More information in this online PDF.

Swedes Planning Intercity Bikeway

The Swedish Traffic Authority, A. K. Streeter reports in Treehugger, has studied, and now proposes, a four-lane bikeway from Malmo to Lund, two cities about 20 miles apart. Like a limited access highway, the bikeway will have exits, but no roads will intersect it.

Bicyclists will have a dual layer of protection from wind consisting of bushes and a solid fence. The bikeway also will include “periodic bicycle service stations.” The intercity route, which will connect the two cities’ downtown areas, is expected to cost $7.1 million.

Streeter reports that in Lund, 60% of the population uses bicycles or public transportation to get around. In Malmo, “cycling has increased 30% each year for the last four years.” That last fact would indicate that someone in Malmo, either local government or a very active civic group, has rallied a great many people to switch from cars to bicycles in a short period of time. Surely it can happen here.

Upcoming Green Events   

BG 101, Wednesday, Jan 25, 4:00 – 5:30 pm, at Bethesda Green, 4825 Cordell Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814. We’re on the second floor above the Capital One Bank branch on the corner of Woodmont and Cordell. Join us for an orientation about Bethesda Green, our history, upcoming events and volunteer opportunities.

WSSC Talks About Our Drinking Water, Jan 31, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, Gaithersburg City Hall, 31 S. Summit Avenue, Gaithersburg, MD 20877. Sponsored by Muddy Branch Alliance, co-sponsored by GO GREEN. The speaker is Joe Johnson, WSSC Chief Superintendent for Potomac Water Treatment Plant. Joe is an excellent speaker and is always a delight to learn from. Montgomery County and Prince George’s counties have a sanitary sewer system as opposed to Washington DC’s combined sewer system.  In other words, WSSC is not responsible for stormwater because stormwater does not enter WSSC’s sanitary sewer system. But the Potomac Water Treatment Plant does have an intake in the Potomac River-below Muddy Branch.  So we are drinking what comes off our lawns. Please RSVP using the form link at the bottom of this page: http://www.muddybranch.org/event/january-meeting-wssc-talks-about-our-drinking-water

Bethesda Green First Thursday Happy Hour: Warm up for Valentine’s Day, Thursday, Feb 2, 5 – 8 pm, The Wine Bar, Doubletree Hotel lobby. Join Bethesda Green for casual conversation and social networking. Win a romantic dinner for two at The OZ restaurant. 

■ Hear about Bethesda Green’s community outreach plans

■ Briefing about new website, mygreenmontgomery.org

■ Enjoy light appetizers

■ Happy-hour-priced beer, wine and specialty drinks

■ Raffle for gift card — dinner for two at The OZ, the Doubletree’s signature restaurant

RSVP through Meetup

Documentary film: “Bag It: Is your life too plastic?”  Saturday, Feb 4, 7:30 pm- 9:30 p.m.  Washington Ethical Society (library), 7750 16th Street, NW, Washington DC 20012 (0.7 miles from Silver Spring Metro Station; S4 Metrobus). “Bag it: Is your life too plastic?” is an eye-opening and funny documentary film that navigates the plastic world.  Are plastic bags neccessary? What are plastic bags made from? What happens to plastic bags after they are discarded? The 65-minute award-winning documentary film will give answers to this questions.  65 min. movie followed by 30 min. discussion.  Snacks provided; $5 donation requested.  RSVPs helpful but drop-ins welcome. Sponsored by the WES Earth Ethics Committee. Email for movie information and RSVP: EarthEthics2@verizon.net or call Sue Jacobson, 301-309-6731.

Bethesda Green Education, Outreach and Marketing (EOM) Group Meeting, Wednesday, Feb 8, 4:00-5:30 pm at Bethesda Green, 4825 Cordell Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814. We’re on the second floor above the Capital One Bank branch on the corner of Woodmont and Cordell. A team of volunteers, EOM supports all of Bethesda Green’s communication efforts. From recycling to energy efficiency, sustainability to green building/design, EOM expresses the organization’s various areas of expertise in a clear and concise manner via various media.  New members are welcome to join. 

Specifically, EOM:

■ Designs and schedules educational programs

■ Collects and shares best practices

■ Engages in general marketing for Bethesda Green

■  Manages all aspects of the website

■ Creates content for the newsletter

■ Uses online tools for outreach purposes

For more information, contact Bethesda Green Communications Director Dave Heffernan, dvheffernan@bethesdagreen.org. 

Green Matters: Urban Farming Pioneers, Friday, Feb 24, 8:30 am – 4:00 pm, Brookside Gardens. This year’s Green Matters will kindle your inner urban farmer and entice you to think about food production in wholly different ways. We’ll highlight innovative approaches to feeding the world’s population. For complete information about speakers and sessions, visit this page.

Bethesda Green’s Third Annual Fields of Green Internship Fair, Saturday, Feb 25, 10 am – 2 pm. 4825 Cordell Avenue, Second Floor above the Capital One Bank. The Internship Fair provides college-age young people an opportunity to meet representatives from a number of companies and non-profits offering job experience in the green business sector. More than 20 companies will be in attendance. Learn about academic and government programs, as well as a variety of internships, including those with our own Green Business Incubator companies. Check out more details and internship opportunities here.

Dan Rudt is the editor of Montgomery County Sustainability News, or MoCo-Sustain.com, a daily news Website serving the local area with environmental sustainability news, information and events.