Written by Jim Lindberg
Denver's Emerson School building.
For the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Emerson School project, that is the question right now. Should we seek LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for our rehabilitation of an 1885 school building in Denver? Or is there a better way to invest some of the funds that LEED certification would require?
We’d like to know what you think.
The Emerson School is a 20,000 square-foot masonry structure located in a historic central Denver neighborhood. We plan to invest $2.5 million to create a new Colorado Preservation Center at the Emerson School, which will house the Trust’s Mountains/Plains Office; Historic Denver, Inc.; Colorado Preservation, Inc.; and other nonprofits.
As a national preservation organization, we think that the Emerson School provides us with a perfect opportunity to show how older and historic buildings can be rehabilitated to achieve substantial, measurable reductions in annual energy use and carbon emissions. At a recent eco-charrette we set ambitious targets for energy consumption at the Emerson School: a 30 to 50 percent reduction by 2012 and “net-zero” consumption by 2030.
To LEED certify the Emerson School rehabilitation we would use the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) 2009 LEED-NC rating system for New Construction or Major Renovations. This rating system continues to evolve, but like other LEED products it is based on the accumulation of points for specific project elements.
LEED certification is not without cost. According to some studies, “the LEED premium” can add from four to eleven percent to project costs. On the other hand, LEED certification can bring financial returns as well, such as higher rents. These and other benefits may compensate for the cost of certification.
Close-up of the south entry portico of Emerson School.
Recently, much attention has focused on the actual energy performance of LEED-certified buildings. This should be another area where cost savings can help compensate for increased initial investment. However, USGBC’s own analysis of the performance of LEED-certified buildings shows that many have not delivered the expected energy savings.
We are weighing this information as we analyze the costs and benefits of LEED certification for our Emerson School project. Like any developer, we don’t have an unlimited budget. We have to make smart choices.
Based on our current scope and budget, we think that we could realistically seek LEED Silver certification for the project and possibly LEED Gold. From our analysis, it appears that many of the “hard cost” expenses that might be necessary to gain LEED points are for things that we will be doing no matter what. For example, we will be installing the kind of high-efficiency HVAC system that is needed to pick up points for improved energy performance. We also plan to commission our new building systems to insure that they are working together and functioning properly.
Our architects, engineers and contractors tell us that to achieve LEED certification at any level an additional $50,000 to $75,000 will be needed to track, document and report to the USGBC as part of the formal certification of the project. Is this a good use of funds? Or would we be better off putting this money into additional building improvements, such as a highly-efficient geothermal heating and cooling system?
There are other questions as well. As we try to answer them, it would be helpful to have your input.
- How important is LEED certification if we want the Emerson School to be taken seriously as a “green” building project and a national model? What level of LEED certification would we need to be taken seriously: Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum?
- Should we skip LEED certification and put our dollars and emphasis on energy performance improvements instead? Can this be another kind of national model?
- Would the National Trust’s decision not to LEED-certify a model “green rehabilitation” be comparable to a green building or environmental organization trying to tout a rehabilitation as a preservation model, even though they didn’t think that the documentation for a National Register nomination or following the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards was “worth it?”
- Are there other, less expensive or more valuable green building rating systems that we should consider instead?
What do you think? Are there other questions we should be asking? Do you have experience to share from your work on a LEED project? Please, let us know!
Jim Lindberg is the director of preservation initiatives for the National Trust’s Mountains/Plains Office.
Holly Norton
January 31, 2011
Hi Jim-
Congrats on saving your building! We just saved ourshere in Northern NJ (www.fellhouse.org)in March 2010. As we begin to look towards renovating the building and its costs, we too are asking about green projects. Our goal is to make our building a living, breathing community gathering place. It is not our dream to see it be a museum. Hence the term renovation and not restoration.
We all would love to be green and historically accurate at the same time. My thoughts are to go as green as we can at the moment and to build a find so that in the future we can add to the “greeness” of our facility. Several of the grants that we obtained to help save the house from demolition deal with environmental aspects and we are mindful of this moving forward. I also wish to take advantage of any state money that is out there right now as I fear like so much state monies, it will be gone next year!
I wish you the very best as you move forward. I hope that all groups such as ours have as much success in saving buildings. Pehaps the emphasis should be on saving the buildings and worrying about green later. Wish we could have it all!
Blessings,
Holly Norton
PS- Don’t forget to pass along any tips when you learn them!
Kat Berntsen
January 31, 2011
Thank you for finally asking the question!
Many building owners and contractors are sucked in by the marketing ploy that is LEED. Although it is a beneficial program to follow, the costs are outrageous!
Try Green Globes http://www.greenglobes.com/ it is a program of relatively the same smart decisions and it is much more manageable with the finances.
Go green but don’t go bankrupt. Be smart about your spending, after all green initiatives are aimed as saving you money, right? So do just that.
Raina
January 31, 2011
Jim — I was very excited about your blog post, I think this is an interesting topic that needs some further discussion. I wanted to touch on your question regarding “Would the National Trust’s decision not to LEED-certify a model “green rehabilitation” be comparable to a green building or environmental organization trying to tout a rehabilitation as a preservation model, even though they didn’t think that the documentation for a National Register nomination or following the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards was “worth it?”
I think the question is a fair one, but finacially it is on two different levels. The costs involved in a NRHP nomination do not compare to the $50,000-$75,000 price tag you quoted for LEED certification. If I understand your article correctly, even if you do not pursue LEED certification formally, you will be following the LEED standards. Therefore, I don’t think you are ignoring their concepts completely, just choosing to spend your resources on hard costs versus soft costs.
I think if you choose to follow the LEED standards, but opt to spend the money for certification on additional green elements, I believe you are striving towards a better, green building. However, I understand the perception of having a building LEED certified brings to a project. So, it is a difficult decision!
I look forward to hearing what you end up deciding.
Chris
January 31, 2011
This looks like a great project. I am a little puzzled by your question though. To achieve LEED certification, I assume that a major goal would be to impliment energy saving strategies through enhanced insulation, sealing, improved equipment, etc. In your bullet points, you present this as an either or. Either enhance the systems or pay for LEED certification. That makes no sense because if you impliment many of your bullett points, you are most of the way towards getting certified anyway. I don’t see it as an either/or.
The key to any green building is to have someone make sure that it actually is green. People can say all they want about insalling bamboo, expanded polystyrene, and high-efficiency etc. but if none of it is working properly, then you don’t have much of a green building. the biggest plus for the LEED cert is the third party verification. This gives you a few advantages. Since the work would be scrutinized by a third party, it seems to me that the general construction (materials installation, insulation, sealing, etc.) would be “better” than if it were not. The third party also verifies that the energy-efficient systems were working as they were designed. If you did not certify, you would likely want this kind of verification anyway so you would pay for it if you certified with USGBC or not. Why pay for an efficiently designed system if you don’t have someone check up and do proper testing afterwards to make sure that it works?
There are other third party verification programs out there (Green Globes, iiSBE has a program, Energy Star, and NAHB has one for housing) but it seems like USGBC has set some of the highest standards. I applaud your efforts and think that you would would be taken seriously as a green building as long as the credentialling has a verification system attached to it. I don’t know the particulars in Colorado but my guess is that there would be some funding for these enhancements regardless. Good luck with the project!
Ken M
January 31, 2011
I have worked as a sub-contractor on several LEED projects, and I am still puzzled why people fall victim to this the hype. I totally agree with the concept, but the process is very corrupt, and huge waste of money. Unless you are independently wealthy, and it doesn’t matter how much it costs, then by all means, do it. My main complaint about the process is the Chain of Control for materials. This is a joke, when there are so many loop holes in the process. The overwhelming red tape required just adds unnecessary costs. I have yet to see where the points received for the different levels of certification really provide any benefit.
If it were me, I would follow the standards, but side step the costly process of certification. An I think that the $50 to $75 k additional cost is very conservative. The material I have provided in the past were 30 to 50% more than other suitable products.
Vince Michael
January 31, 2011
LEED is improving but its assessment is still largely front-end and design-based. USGBC admitted a couple of years ago that fully half of its certified buildings were not performing as designed. We need to collect data on actual performance, not well-intentioned design, as some of the Canadian and English sustainability models do. LEED is proposing this for 3.0, but participation in actual performance statistics has been extremely anemic so far.
thosbutler
January 31, 2011
Jim –
As a sustainability consultant for preservation architecture firm, we struggle with this as well.
LEED provides a third party validation of design intent which then brands the project as sustainable to the public. The key word here is intent.
The fees you describe from the design consultants are in-line with what we would expect for a project like this. Of the $50-70K I’m guessing that $25-30K is simply doing LEED paperwork and paying certification fees, so this is your real cost difference over a traditional approach. I doubt this will pay for a geothermal system, as you use for an example. It would buy comprehensive envelope and energy analysis, beyond the scope of LEED requirements, to better direct your efforts at balancing the preservation goals and the sustainability goals of the project. It will also pay for sub metering and monitoring tools which can help you gauge the actual performance of the building against the modeled performance. The key word here is actual.
Ideally you would do both, reaping the benefits of being identified with an internationally recognized sustainable brand while having the robust analysis and performance data to determine if you have made the right decisions in the design and operation of your building. But, if you have to choose one or the other, I would choose data over labels. LEED certification deliberately captures a snapshot of the building at a particular moment and this seems so contrary to the nature of buildings as spaces and materials which are continually changing with use and responding to their environment.
Greg Allen
February 1, 2011
I applaud the effort to save and do right by this great building, including making it as green as is economically possible, but I suggest directing your funds to hard costs rather than for LEED certification, which is imperfect at best anyway for historic buildings.
Patricia Sulick
February 1, 2011
I am not a professional in the industry, just love both historic preservation and green building and love it even more when people work to combine the two, so take what I say with a grain of salt….
I would love to see this project be a poster child for smart, economical, energy efficient rehab. I do not know the details of the Leed program, but have heard that there are elements of it that do not make sense. I think that the marketing boost you would get from the Leed label could be overcome through promoting all the incredibly smart decisions you make. When I say smart I mean both energy efficient, occupant and environment friendly, as well as financially savvy.
After all there are two major criticisms of “green” building that I know of as someone not in the industry:
1. More expensive
2. Ultimately not that green (poorly made materials, improper construction, building difficult to re-purpose)
I think promoting a project that overcomes these criticisms and does so with a historic structure is way more impressive than getting the Leed label. Leed has a “been there done that” feeling for me.
Margo Warminski
February 1, 2011
Go for LEED certification. I agree, it would be worthwhile to apply the savings to additional energy improvements. But the more historic buildings achieve LEED certification while preserving their historic character, the easier it will be to counter the argument that historic buildings waste energy and should be replaced by new construction.
Dick Williams, LEED AP BD+C
February 1, 2011
Jim- Having perused the responses to date, I’m going to suggest that the title of your piece can be seen as a play on words, providing a self-answer. So, I suggest you lead by embracing LEED (which program also encompasses existing building certification for some time down the road when a systems tune-up might make good sense).
I’m a LEED AP BD+C and a graduate of Columbia’s Historic Preservation program a long while back. I’m always hopeful of marrying the two, including the positive impacts of historic and other tax credits, and the perceived value in the real estate investor community on a private-sector undertaking–which yours isn’t.
As you are well aware, the Trust is working with the USGBC on the weighting of credits that better favor preservation while addressing those that are “sticky wickets” for historic properties, i.e., roof (solar) and windows (further sealing assuming well-made storms aren’t used). So, not leading might look more like “turtling.”
The choice you present includes following the LEED certification process but just leave aside the certification–which does bring to mind, as you say, some comparability to not registering an historic property with the NPS and/or renovating to a lesser standard that that set by NPS.
While I’m a 3rd-party sustainability consultant and find it against my firm’s interest, there are many examples of architects “throwing in” the fees that would be charged for administration of the LEED certification process. Of course the fees to the GBCI are unavoidable.
In the main, I think there may be some merit to consider deferring some improvements that may be almost as conveniently undertaken later in order to afford the LEED process. The discipline of the LEED process, including the seriousness with which it’s undertaken is a very good thing–few compromises, rather than compromises made easy by not pursing the actual LEED certification. Incidentally, I like better the sound of gold rather than silver but either makes about the same impression in the public realm, I think.
OTOH, maybe you should consider selling your building to a friendly private corporation with a (say) 50-year leaseback. It could utilize the various tax-related incentives for LEED-mandated improvements and the tax credits. ‘Course, for my liking, that friendly corporation would be desirous of LEED certification. Here’s a final, real reach: with private ownership, the project might be eligible for the New Market tax credits that can be offered through the Trust’s affiliate, NTCIC.
Good luck with your project and that nettlesome question lying before it!
Dennis Lapic
February 2, 2011
As already well discussed here, many are facing this same decision as yours. As a small restoration contractor acquiring and restoring historic structures I too struggled whether to incorporate participation in LEED while planning and executing a restoration.
In attempted to balance preservation goals and the LEED sustainability goals in my projects I found I could improve systems that were more “sustainable” while still preserving the historic fabric, yet in the final result the LEED evaluation process would have awarded virtually no credit for my efforts versus demolishing and rebuilding.
This led to more questions, many well beyond my little projects. One question that keeps nagging me – ‘who is LEED to determine the value of our historic heritage’? Really! Question two – ‘Why hasn’t the National Trust developed it’s own parallel quantitative certification process that could put preservation and restoration on parallel with sustainability’?
Instead of the Trust participating in a program that has demonstrated it’s contempt of extant structures the Trust should be the authority, not LEED and the USGBC, that issues a certificate of equal weight that recognizes the degree of success of preservation to the Secretary’s standards. Sustainability that minimizes disturbances to historic fabric would be assigned points leading to that certification .
LEED was in response to the public debate on environment, energy, and sustainability, but its pushing preservation to the margins. If the Trust and friends are interested getting back in the public eye, you’re going to have to think outside the box or continue to be marginalized.
Pam Howland
February 2, 2011
Dear Jim:
This project is inspiring because you are reach the highest level on a number of different historic, environmental and financial criteria.
One difficulty I have found with LEED is tthat Life Cycle Analysis is not given higher importance. If it were, LEED would be more relevant as a sustainability measure.
For example, window preservation with simple interior insulating storms should deliver as many LEED points as the newly manufactured R-5 replacements trucked in from an assembly factory in Maryland or Utah made of toxic materials shipped from China.
Good luck to you all.
-Pam Howland
Joy Sears
February 2, 2011
As a preservationist who is also concerned with being green and sustainable, skip the LEED certification and spend that money on the sensitive rehab of the building. LEED should not be the leading force in historic building rehabiltation! Dealing with the historic tax credits and living in Oregon, I find LEED really just being a gimmick for buying more stuff and paying more for that stuff already and in the end doesn’t mean anything in the long term. Follow the LEED guidelines is you want to but don’t make it a deciding factor. I am not an architect but I see way too much building material end up in the landfill because it isn’t new so it can’t be green or sustainable. Historic Preservation is the ultimate recycling!
Ken Clein
February 3, 2011
First of all, the Trust should be commended for undertaking the Sustainable Stewardship of a historic building, regardless of the decision to pursue LEED certification. At Quinn Evans Architects we confront these same questions with many of our clients and the answers depend a lot on your intentions and goals.
If you want to promote you project and organization as sustainable, the third party certification that LEED offers is widely recognized and probably worth pursuing (despite the cost). We find that Silver is easily achieved for most projects based on our normal practices. Gold requires some added commitment. The commissioning will save you money over the life of the systems and offset the biggest cost of certification.
Designing, documenting and tracking the environmental impact of your project on your own is possible (for instance, you can use LEED as a guide without submitting), but the commitment to maintain the sustainable features when it becomes necessary to cut costs or the will to track and publish actual performance data can be compromised.
I do think that committing to LEED certification at some level shows the green community that the preservation community takes sustainability seriously.
One final note. The big challenge in making historic buildings more energy efficient are in adding insulation to massive masonry walls, attics and in how one deals with historic windows. Looks like a great project. Best of Luck.