CREJ - Journal

106

/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / MARCH 2015

that a reasonable number of tenants would value a strong commitment to sustainabil-

ity.” Akey tomaking the Tenant Design Standard a truly viable solutionwas to simplify

the process of using it. That meant developing a concise, clean, graphically appealing

book withmaterial choices that were well organized and easy to find. Additionally, the

standard is easily adaptable. Each tenant’s desired finish materials, fixtures and equip-

ment only had tomeet the document’s intent for sustainability to be approved for use.

1900 Sixteenth Street was completed in the fall of 2008 and the building easily

achieved the first two LEED certifications. The third certification, EBOM, requires a

minimum continuous operational period of 12 months before it can be certified. 1900

Sixteenth Street was occupied for more than five years before the ownership team

began to look at retro-commissioning, a process used to validate system performance

and fine-tune the building’s operational efficiency.

“The retro-commissioning process is really about making sure the building is be-

ing operated on an optimum level,” remarked Celeste Cizik, senior energy engineer

of Group14 Engineering, the firm hired to do the commissioning for the EBOM Certi-

fication. “When Group14 was brought on board in January of 2014, we found that the

building’s operations teamwas doing a really good job of using the building’s systems

as designed but, generally, there is always room for improvement.” Those improve-

ments included rearranging a systems’ sequencing process during the early morning

“building warm-up” period to get the building ready for occupancy more efficiently.

Another change involved adding Sky Spark, an innovative data analytics software,

that allows users to combine human intuition with measured performance to iden-

tify when and where data isn’t lining up with expectations. Sky Spark provides a re-

al-time view of building operations and illustrates how well the building is perform-

ing against expectations allowing operators to enhance performance by fine-tuning

system sequences.

Beyond the certifications, the success of 1900 Sixteenth Street is really about perfor-

mance. On average, office buildings in the United States operate for roughly $2.04 per

square foot per year. 1900 Sixteenth Street runs on just $1.30 per square foot. Multiply

the savings of 74 cents by the building’s approximately 440,000 square feet and it’s easy

to understand why 1900 Sixteenth Street makes a lot of sense inside and out.

/ 1900 Sixteenth Street Makes Common Sense /

1900 SIXTEENTH STREET BY THE NUMBERS

PHASE I COMPLETED:

2008

BUILDING AREA:

440,000 SF

COST:

$81M

LEED CERTIFICATIONS:

LEED Existing Building Operations

and Maintenance (EBOM)

LEED Gold Core and Shell (CS)

LEED Certified Commercial Interiors

SUSTAINABILITY MEASUREMENTS:

Building Consumes Over 19million

kBtus Less than the Average Office

Building of the Same Size

Costs $1.64 Per SF Per Year

to Operate Compared with $2.04

Per SF Per Year for Same Size

Office Buildings

60% of Building Occupants Use

Alternative Transportation

91% of the Electronic

Equipment in the Building is

Energy Star Compliant

58% of the Annually Generated

Building Waste Is Recycled

Photos by Saunders

1900 Sixteenth Street lobby

ABOVE LEFT:

Under construction:

1900 Sixteenth Street

ABOVE RIGHT:

Six years later, 1900 Sixteenth

Street goes Platinum.