DENVER, February 18, 2009 — Jones Lang LaSalle, the financial and professional services firm specializing in real estate, today announced that Seventeenth Street Plaza in downtown Denver has become the first multi-tenant property in the Rocky Mountain Time Zone to earn LEED Gold Certification. Located at 1225 Seventeenth Street in the heart of Denver’s financial district, the 666,653-square-foot building is one of only 17 existing office properties in the USA to have earned LEED Gold certification under the Existing Building or Operations & Maintenance (EB-OM) standard.
J.P. Morgan Asset Management, who owns the building on behalf of institutional investors, appointed Jones Lang LaSalle to manage the property in 2000. Since then, the firm has devised a plan to improve and optimize the building’s efficiency, earning the building an ENERGY STAR rating every year since 2003. In 2007, the owner wanted to go a step further and attain LEED certification, and in January 2009 this ambition was realized with Gold LEED-EB status. The Seventeenth Street Plaza team is lead by General Manager Myra Napoli and Senior Chief Engineer Curt Godes.
“J.P. Morgan recognizes that a sustainable, resource-efficient building is attractive to tenants, as it reduces utility costs and promotes the health and well-being of employees,” said Paul Schloff, head of property management at Jones Lang LaSalle in Denver. “In the current competitive office market, these operational and productivity benefits represent a powerful differentiator for Seventeenth Street Plaza.”
To gain Gold LEED-EB certification, the team at Jones Lang LaSalle developed a strategy that included:
· Installation of a weather satellite-controlled landscape irrigation system to control water usage according to local weather conditions.
· Creation of a recycling program that redirects 219 tons of waste annually
· Replacement of fluorescent bulbs with more cost-efficient low-mercury bulbs
· Increased use of sustainable maintenance products
“In many cases, environmentally superior strategies have also been financially superior, paying for themselves within three years,” Schloff said. Overall, the efficiency initiative has reduced electrical and water costs by nearly $225,000 annually. In addition, the property management team tapped into Xcel Energy’s Demand Side Management (DSM) utility rebate program for an additional $95,000 in cost reduction between 2002 and 2008. The program reduced energy use by an average of 4.08 million KwH annually, equating to about 2,148 metric tons of greenhouse gases avoided each year.
About LEED
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria. For more information, please visit the U.S. Green Building Council website at www.usgbc.org.
About ENERGY STAR
ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices. EPA provides an innovative energy performance rating system which businesses have already used for more than 62,000 buildings across the country. EPA also recognizes top performing buildings with the ENERGY STAR. For more information please visit www.energystar.gov.
About Jones Lang LaSalle
Jones Lang LaSalle (NYSE:JLL) is a financial and professional servicesfirm specializing in real estate. The firm offers integratedservices delivered by expert teams worldwide to clients seekingincreased value by owning, occupying or investing in real estate.With 2008 global revenue of $2.7 billion, Jones Lang LaSalle servesclients in 60 countries from 750 locations worldwide, including 180corporate offices. Thefirm is an industry leader in property and corporate facilitymanagement services, with a portfolio of approximately 1.3 billionsquare feet worldwide. LaSalle Investment Management, the company’sinvestment management business, is one of the world’s largest andmost diverse in real estate with more than $46 billion of assetsunder management. For further information, please visit our Website,www.joneslanglasalle.com.
For more information contact:
Craig Bloomfield, LEED AP
Jones Lang LaSalle
(312) 228-2774
