Why Improving Building Performance is Key to Standing Out in a Challenging Market

In today’s challenging commercial real estate environment, owners and operators of large office buildings are looking for innovative ways to bolster the value of their properties. Many are turning to sustainability upgrades, retrofits, and green certifications that serve to improve overall building performance while reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. 

And while owners and management teams have the final say on such decisions, building operations staff must be brought on board to successfully execute any large-scale sustainability project. Kurt Anderson, Chief Engineer at 401 N. Michigan Avenue and BOMA/Chicago’s 2021 Building Engineer of the Year, attributed the success of his team’s sustainability efforts to a collaborative approach and a focus on continuing education among staff. 

“I lean heavily on my team’s expertise,” Anderson says. “The better they understand each building system and individual piece of equipment, the better prepared everyone is to employ sustainability measures.” 

Anderson sat down with the Hub to discuss his role in helping 401 N. Michigan achieve LEED Platinum status as well as his strategies for bringing building staff on board with sustainability upgrades—including those who may be skeptical of messaging around climate change. 

Answer: Obviously being cost competitive in today’s [commercial real estate] market is huge and garners support from all parties involved, but more importantly—it’s the right thing to do. Regardless of which side of the climate change debate you are on, sharing the earth’s resources should be driving everyone’s thought process. 

I’ve spoken to building management, and they are finding more and more inquiries from lenders, investors, and owners as to how their assets fit into the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) equation and asking what the onsite teams are doing to get close to the finish line, even if it’s not crossing the finish line.  These folks seem to know what we’re doing to make these continual adjustments to stay current and on the cutting edge of sustainability. 

What I understand from the leasing team is that green investments are probably more top of mind for larger space users. For smaller tenants, it’s more of a softer issue—a feel-good alignment with their core values.  They use the investment in these items as a marketing item and a testimonial of landlord’s continual investment. 

A: Staying active with organizations like Illinois Green Alliance, BOMA/Chicago and BOMA committees, as well as pursuing all programs afforded to us via utility providers. Also, working closely with Local 399’s training administrator and facilitating outings for sustainability classes for both Local 399 and IIT [Illinois Institute of Technology]. The utility providers offer custom rebate programs, facility assessments, web-based training, and energy calculators. For me, to forward these tools to my team gives them a lot of information and helps explain things at their own level. 

A: Being mindful to engage all levels of building staff is important. Top brass clearly needs to support our initiatives, but if we leave essential building staff and/or trades out, we will likely miss many opportunities. Town Hall Meetings go a long way as well. Tenants have great questions and concerns relating to not just sustainability but to the environment we provide while at work. Again, COVID provided many lessons in overlap in what we do and how sustainability goes hand in hand with a safe and healthy work environment. 

Bringing building staff and trades to the table before these measures and features are decided on goes a long way in engaging everyone. If you know there is a pending edict coming down and you get on board early, you can help be a part of writing the plan and putting it together. I start a meeting [with building staff] by asking: do you have anything you want to talk about? If you let people speak up first, they have ownership. 

A: We had an internal Energy Challenge at Zeller, an upgrade to wireless pneumatic thermostats, ongoing commissioning and retro-commissioning, a steam trap audit, and engaged with our utility providers every time they offered to do a facility assessment. The custom rebate incentive program from ComEd is beneficial regardless of if ideas ultimately get the green light. 

Wireless pneumatic thermostats gave us control over 650 building thermostats we could previously not “see” but also gave us the ability to use new technology to assist in ongoing commissioning projects previously unavailable to a building this age. So now, I can see the temperature of all the perimeter thermostats and can adjust them if a tenant moves out or has an extended period of time when they won’t be in the office. 

Ongoing commissioning affords us the ability to employ the latest technology in terms of programming and control strategies. Additionally, it exposes equipment out in the field that is not functioning correctly—a damper or valve that is stuck can go unnoticed for a long time, resulting in wasted energy and money. 

We also upgraded light fixtures and put LED lights in the stairwells along with motion sensors, where the lights go down to 20% but turn on when you walk by them. LED lighting retrofits are very common these days and we retrofitted all mechanical and parking areas years ago, but one of the “last frontiers,” if you will, was when the City of Chicago finally approved an LED fixture that had dimming controls combined with motion sensors that would be allowed in an exit stairwell. 

A: During our internal Energy Challenge, we saved over $500,000 in energy costs over the course of three years. The results are clearly defined in utility spending, which is monitored closely. Also, many of the upgrades are closely tied to building automation and controllability of the building’s environment—which affords us the ability to stay flexible and provide a clean, safe environment regardless of the situation at hand.