I thought I'd post these links to a couple of articles found online at the National Real Estate Investor site. There is also another one about the Empire State Building achieving LEED gold certification for existing buildings that you can find off the home page.
The article
Green Building Regulations: Carrots or Sticks? discusses the advantages and disadvantages of going green on a building. Quoting from the article: "According to Gottlieb, the sustainable real estate movement is driven by "cost-benefit analysis and regulation-or carrots and sticks-and the sticks, at least in the minds of many in the real estate industry, outweigh the carrots because the returns of investing in sustainability remain in question due to split incentive, capital costs perception, thin operating margins, market uncertainty, lack of a long-term track record, etc.""
However, many developers find that green buildings can command higher rents, even if there is no significant payback in terms of energy usage. You can read the article at:
http://nreionline.com/news/green_building_carrots_sticks_09192011/ The other article is
Going Green is Nice. But How do you Stay Green? This article deals with building commissioning, and gives a basic explanation of the process. You can read this article at:
http://nreionline.com/news/go_green_stay_green_09192011/ -------------------------------------------
Klaus Steinke AIA
Las Vegas NV
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