The Stranger reports that The Schuster Group is laying off staff and trying to sell its double-LEED-certified headquarters building in lower Queen Anne for $4 million.

An interior view of The Schuster Group\'s headquarters building

Dominic Holden’s post quotes Scott Bevan, senior development manager of Schuster, saying, “The building is actually owned by one of our investment groups and part of our responsibility is to return money to our investors … In order to return in that investment, we have got to sell the property.”

In addition to Mosler Lofts, this building has been a very significant feather in the green developer’s cap. It represented the company’s commitment to green building, and was often cited as an example of what could be done in green development. 

Last June, I reported on the double LEED certification for existing buildings and interiors here. The building’s improvements included daylighting 90 percent of the office space, installing daylight sensors control lighting, using rainwater barrels and a reflective roof.

In that story, Mark Schuster, founder and CEO of The Schuster Group, said, “We didn’t just want to create an environmentally savvy building, we wanted to create an environmentally friendly atmosphere in which every tenant and employee has an active role in using green practices every day.”

Schuster also spoke at a forum in February on how green development would be affected by the economy.  At that event, he said people in the green movement are going to have to be committed to jumpstarting green building once the economy comes back in a couple of years. To read the story, see the DJC here.

Earlier today, NAIOP national released a report that looks at the levels of energy efficiency a standard office building can achieve while remaining economically feasible.

The study looked at whether commercial development could achieve reduction

The Casey in Portland is designed to use 52 percent less energy than a similar, conventional building

targets of between 30 and 50 percent above ASHRAE 90.1-2004. It compared results on a four-story, 95,000-square-foot, Class A office building in climate zones represented in Chicago, Baltimore and Newport Beach, Calif.

The results?

“Findings show that although significant energy efficiencies can be achieved (varying by climate zone), reaching a 30 percent reduction above the ASHRAE standard is not feasible using common design approaches and would exceed a 10-year payback. The study concluded that achieving a 50 percent reduction above the standard is not currently reachable.”

Here is the breakdown:

Chicago had a 23 percent increase in energy savings at a $188,523 cost increase at an 8.8 year payback.

Baltimore had a 21.5 percent increase in energy efficiency at a $165,148 cost increase at an 11 year payback.

Newport Beach had a 15.8 percent increase in energy savings at a $169,898 additional cost at a 12.2 year payback.

Ouch. Those are long paybacks for most developers. But then again, developers ARE targeting these goals and reaching them. Heck, there are net-zero buildings under development! NAIOP’s goal in developing this study was to prove that a one-size fits all approach does not work in green buildings, but that almost seems to holds true in countering the study, too. Though most of the developers who really push the green envelope, both in design and energy efficiency, are long-term holders of buildings.

Is that what it all comes down to? What a developer’s business model is?

The study also said elements of a holistic, integrated design approach that could create higher energy efficiencies were impractical in the study’s building prototype. The example the study gives is that a geothermal system requires an additional two acres of space, at least in the Newport Beach model.

To read the entire press release, go here.

The green roof at Seattle hotel-condo project Olive 8 is being installed this week. It is one of the largest green roofs in Seattle at 8,355 square feet.

The roof is actually two green roofs so the developer, R.C. Hedreen, can test out which system it likes best. Above the chillers there is a sod-based green roof. On the actual fourth floor ground level, there is a tray-based sedum system. There is a lasting argument between which one of these techniques is better, which I will discuss in a later post at greater detail. For more on this project, or to learn about R.C. Hedreen’s conversion to being a green developer, read the story in the DJC here.

R.C. Hedreen is also considering a second green roof on the 39th floor of Olive 8, though if it pursues that option it will need to be sod-based as David Thyer, president of the company, said the city is afraid the green roof trays will blow away at such a great height.

On Tuesday, I was fortunate enough to see part of the tray installation. Here are photos I took of the process:

Trays on the ground

Workers pick up a tray...

And load the tray into a pattern

The green roof from behind

Both green roofs

A close up of the sod-based green roof

For more on Olive 8, see the official page here. To see more photos, visit Eco Friendly Mag here.

For those of you not from the Pacific Northwest, Gerding Edlen Development Co. is widely regarded here as one of the best role models for sustainable project development. People want to know what they’re working on - and what they think is the next big thing in sustainability, as evidenced by my story on their Casey Condominium project being the DJC’s most read and most e-mailed story on Friday. 

So when I spoke with Mark Edlen, Gerding Edlen’s managing partner last week, and he said within a year LEED platinum would be “an absolute yawner” in his office, you better believe my ears perked up. Instead, he said it’s on to net zero buildings that consume more trash than they produce!

We were talking about the platinum rating because The Casey (at right), a $60 million, 61-unit building, is supposedly the first LEED platinum multifamily high rise in the world.  

It’s also the firm’s first foray into “eco-luxury”  - a combination of ultimate ecological consciousness and luxury (something not often associated with green buildings).

In fact, it is widely agreed upon that the green building movement has done a particularly bad job of combining function and beauty, something that most agree must become a stronger focus. But Mark’s focus behind developing green projects is that a project should not compromise anything from site to construction to occupancy comfort, just to be sustainable.

So why not go after green luxury, the same way you’d go after green office or hospital space?  What do you think? Can a building be both?

To read a local perspective, click here or here. For real estate stats, go here. For more go here. If you’re interested in Gerding Edlen, you can read about another one of their project’s in a December story I wrote here.

But if you want to learn more about the Casey, its green features, the difficulty of building green multifamily to such a high level, and the building’s art component, there’s only one place to look: the story in the DJC. Check it out here.