Where Facilities Managers Begin To Save Energy

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Everyone wants to save energy; everyone feels the pressure to reduce costs and improve the bottom line of their business in a lousy economic climate.

Energy Savings Companies (ESCOs) come in two varieties, guaranteed savings or non-guaranteed savings. So where does the facilities manager start? The answer: get an energy study done.

Common Sense
First and foremost, be honest about the goal of your energy savings program. Whomever you hire needs the facts so they can get down to serious work and be successful. You owe them your honesty to give the energy savings program a chance of working out to your company’s benefit.

Before the Study
Utility Bills: This is like the EKG for your building. Compile the bills and understand them. Know the patterns so you understand how much energy your building is using during the day, the night and season to season. Make a spreadsheet, trend the data and study it.

Metering: This is the calorie counter of your building. The biggest loads should be metered. You cannot save where you do not measure. ESCO’s of all stripes will implement metering strategies early on, so get this done to be in charge of baseline data and save money.

Equipment: Make a detailed list of every piece of energy consuming equipment in the building with all of its pertinent data. This quest to save energy can quickly move from merely saving money to asking yourself why you are behind on maintenance, since well-maintained equipment uses less energy. Get ROI quotes now.

Lighting: Knowing how everyone circulates through the building at every hour will help you to understand lighting needs within your facility. Carefully scheduling lighting patterns can far out-pace the payback period of a re-lamping project. Get quotes with pay-back periods for controls and re-lamping to compare.

Building Envelope: Invest in an infrared camera or have an IR scan done by a professional to know where the heat is going in your building. An IR scan may show an area that has been vexing you for years. Execute a plan to plug the holes, and do it now.

Controls Strategies: Make sure your building works well. This is the place where the ROI is typically the most attractive for energy projects.

Now you’ve got a list of things you can control, all you need is time and money. So, let’s look at what is really working against you (apart from time and budget crunches) in all of this.

Human Behavior
The occupants in your building are people. People have habits, both good and bad. It is nearly impossible to change these habits, especially when it comes to their work environment. All day employees give their sweat and effort, so they demand comfort. To better provide this comfort, ESCO’s need your common sense and understanding of the building and its occupants to truly weigh the validity of the Energy Savings Measures (ESM’s) they propose.

Handling energy in buildings is one of the biggest issues facing facilities managers, and most aim to become better stewards of the planet’s resources. No matter how old or what type of building you manage, there is something more you can do to make the energy spending go down. However, obtaining the money to implement it and the sheer will (and consensus) to make the changes are the biggest impediments to any challenge, that and the human behavior thing.

 

Source:  Facilities Magazine

 

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Why Smart Building Tech Is A No-Brainer For Property Owners And Investors

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Facing pressure to manage costs, risks and energy consumption, commercial building owners and investors are exploring how smart building technologies can help a company’s triple bottom line—people, planet, profits.

Five key trends are making smart buildings a “no-brainer” for commercial property owners and investors, according to Jones Lang LaSalle’s latest report, The Changing Face of Smart Buildings: The Op-Ex Advantage. “Commercial and public property owners are looking to smart building technology to boost operational efficiency, achieve energy savings, improve capital planning and reduce their carbon footprints,” says Dan Probst, JLL’s chairman of Energy and Sustainability Services. “These advantages, combined with tenant preferences for smart building features, provide a competitive edge for owners and investors.”

Five Reasons For Smart Building Investment

The report, which details the landscape for smart building technology, identifies five major trends:

1. Rapid Return On Investment
Smart building technology investments typically pay for themselves within one or two years by delivering energy savings and other operational efficiencies. Also driving the fast payback is the low cost of automated building technology, which has fallen as adaptation has increased. For example, intelligent lighting components that cost $120 four years ago today sell for just $50. Procter & Gamble’s building management pilot program, for example, generated a positive return on investment in just three months.

2. Operating-Expense Advantage
Relative to other energy-related building upgrades, smart building technology requires little upfront capital expenditure (cap-ex), while delivering significantly reduced operational expenditures (op-ex). Using automated systems, smart buildings generally cost less to operate  than buildings operating solely on legacy systems, therefore offering a long-term op-ex advantage. By combining smart building systems and data analytics with facilities management, a smart building management system can detect and resolve building issues before equipment failures and capital expenditures ensue. Additionally, operational and energy savings begin shortly after the smart building management system is implemented.

3. Marketing Mileage
As reported in JLL’s October 2012 “Global Sustainability Perspective,” numerous studies and surveys have demonstrated that tenants and their advisors increasingly expect smart building features such as zoned HVAC, sophisticated equipment maintenance alert systems, advanced security systems and “green” buildings. Like a new lobby or elevator bank, an improvement in sustainability makes an office building more desirable to tenants. These benefits can justify collecting higher rent and can increase competitive advantage and occupancy rates. And when the building is sold, sustainable investments can be recouped in an increased sales price. In fact, a 2011 study by Eichholtz, Kok and Quigley indicated the premium for LEED-certified or ENERGY STAR-labeled buildings is approximately 13%.

4. Energy Savings
Smart building technology can generate energy savings of 8% to 15% annually almost immediately after deployment, with the potential for incremental improvements over time. A 2012 report by the Rockefeller Foundation and Deutsche Bank Group’s DB Climate Change Advisors estimates that $289 billion in building efficiency investment would produce savings in excess of $1 trillion in the US alone, with every dollar invested in energy efficiency producing three dollars of operational savings.

5. Improved Corporate Social Responsibility Profile
Redirecting energy spend to building efficiency has allowed some corporate decision-makers to gain the reputational advantages of doing the right thing by the environment while also gaining significant performance and productivity improvements. Another benefit is a smart building system’s ability to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions. Some owners feed building emissions data to multiple benchmarking organizations, such as Greenprint and GRESB, as well as to Ceres and similar third-party reporting organizations, and smart systems can roll up the information from across a portfolio.

 

Source: GlobeSt

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South Beach Retail Building Fetches $1,500 PSF

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An 8,300-square-foot building operating as a fashion store for Guess in Miami Beach has sold for $12.5 million, which equates to $1,499 per square foot.

Marcus & Millichap represented the seller, a Miami-based owner/developer. The buyer, also represented by Marcus & Millichap, is an institutional investment group interested in building a South Florida retail portfolio.

“The building is a trophy retail asset located in the heart of the Collins Avenue fashion district,” said Drew Kristol, VP of investments in Marcus & Millichap’s Miami office. “Guess has occupied the property since 1998, and over the years has re-invested into their build-out. The new owner is an excellent position to capitalize on the below market in-place rental structure.”

The two-story building, located at 736 Collins Ave. between Seventh and Eighth streets in Miami Beach, was extensively remodeled in 1998 and has received complete interior renovations from Guess within the last 18 months.

 

Source: SFBJ

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Coconut Grove $18 Million Redevelopment Plan Gets Key Vote

An $18 million plan to redevelop one of Coconut Grove’s most important waterfront parcels won approval from voters Tuesday.

The vote makes it possible for Grove Bay Investment Group to move forward with its plan to replace the Chart House and Scotty’s Landing and overhaul the Grove Key Marina that is located to the north of city hall.

The group, which is now able to sign a 50-year lease for the site, plans to locate new restaurants including Shula’s Steak House at the property. It will also restore and put to new use a pair of historic Pan Am hangars located there and build a promenade that will end at a new pier.

The city on Tuesday also began demolishing the Coconut Grove Exhibition Center to make way for a park. The area’s overall revitalization plan includes a public parking garage, with the developer contributing $5 million toward its construction, that would serve all the new facilities.

 

Source:  SFBJ

 

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Local CRE Developer Authors EB-5 Financing Guide

From Manhattan to Miami, foreign investors seeking U.S. visas are a growing source of real estate financing through the job-creating federal EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.

To help developers navigate the program’s complex requirements and frustrating delays, veteran developer Rodrigo Azpúrua’s new book, EB-5 Visas & Real Estate Development, provides a step-by-step approach to create successful projects.

The book guides real estate professionals in designing and building commercial real estate projects that meet requirements of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s (USCIS) EB-5 program. It’s a financing method being used nationwide to fully or partially fund projects including office buildings, mixed-use centers and resorts.

“When traditional financing evaporated in 2008, the EB-5 program really came into its own,” explains Azpúrua, who has been responsible for managing over $200 million in land development projects that created about 1 million square feet of office space throughout Florida.  “For development teams who master the complexities, it’s great financing alternative,” he said.  “Funding is relatively low cost, since investors are more focused on finding a reliable project to secure their immigration status than on high returns.”

Foreign participation in the EB-5 program keeps climbing, from 1028 visa petitions in 2009 to a 6,041 in 2012, toward the government’s current annual cap of 10,000 visas.  Launched in the early 1990s, the program lets qualified foreign investors obtain conditional resident status (green card) for investing a minimum of $1 million in U.S. businesses, or $500,000 in an economically challenged Targeted Employment Area.  If the individual’s investment creates at least 10 jobs within two years, the government grants permanent U.S. residency.

The book’s readers will learn how to:

  • Establish a job-producing project concept that aligns with EB-5 regulations and investors’ needs.
  • Assemble the multi-disciplinary team crucial to secure funding and manage the process.
  • Gauge if a project should move forward, based on financial feasibility, site selection, due diligence and marketing planning.
  • Understand EB-5 requirements, the Immigrant Investor Visa process and who can apply.
  • Evaluate job-creation projections, based on USCIS precedent and econometric analysis.
  • Create the highly disciplined business plan needed for government approval.
  • Reduce investor risk at every stage of the project.

Azpúrua brings life to the technical topic, sharing his first-hand development and immigration experiences.

An attorney who practiced real estate law for 14 years in his native Venezuela, he immigrated to the U.S. in 2001 and launched his development career in Miami.  He travels regularly to speak about EB-5 investment to audiences in the U.S., South America and China, and he has appeared as an expert on the subject in media including CNN and Fox News.

For information visit www.rivierapmo.com

Adam Von Romer, CCIM, Senior Investment Associate at Fitzgerald Group also has a new book on the shelves, “Getting Started in Commercial Real Estate Ten Step Program to Success!“ The book was co-authored by Von Romer and Patricia O’Connor.

Adam has taught or spoken for national and regional companies and associations such as Tandy/Radio Shack, Wiechert Realty, Marcus & Millichap, Coldwell Banker, Century 21, ERA, the Florida Association of Realtors, West Virginia Career College, and many more. He routinely conducts workshops and seminars on commercial real estate sales, commercial real estate leasing, commercial real estate financing,and commercial mortgage restructuring and modification.

 

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South Florida’s Office Vacancy Falls To 13.5%

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The South Florida Office market ended the third quarter 2013 with a vacancy rate of 13.5%.

The vacancy rate was down over the previous quarter, with net absorption totaling positive 551,507 square feet in the third quarter. That compares to positive 769,100 square feet in the second quarter 2013. Vacant sublease space decreased in the quarter, ending the quarter at 722,903 square feet.

Tenants moving into large blocks of space in 2013 include: Miami Herald Media Company moving into 158,266 square feet at 3511 NW 91st Ave; Management Resources Institute moving into 40,000 square feet at 550 LeJeune Rd; and Aldridge Connors moving into 39,788 square feet at 1615 S Congress Ave.

Rental rates ended the third quarter at $26.04, a decrease over the previous quarter.

A total of three buildings delivered to the market in the quarter totaling 31,512 square feet, with 812,735 square feet still under construction at the end of the quarter.

This trend is compared to the U.S. National Office vacancy rate, which decreased to 11.6% from the previous quarter, with net absorption positive 23.48 million square feet in the third quarter. Average rental rates increased to $21.75, and 244 office buildings delivered to the market totaling more than 12.2 million square feet.

 

Source:  CoStar

 

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