Monday, November 16, 2009

CIASF program: Saving Green by Retrofitting Green on


Thursday night, November 12, Becker & Poliakoff, hosted a very informative program on “Greening” existing buildings to the members and guests of CIASF. (Commercial and Industrial Association of South Florida.) It is no accident that the offices of Becker & Poliakoff are in the elegant Alhambra Towers which is an energy star rated building for 2009. The message conveyed by Alan Krinzman, LEED-AP and host of the event, that the business of creating more energy efficient and healthy building environments needs to begin now and that energy efficiency and LEED principles are not a fad, but a necessity that we all need to embrace.

Paul Cohen of CBRE was the moderator of a panel the included Scott Alexander of ProLogis that shared the success ProLogis has in California and Oregon in leasing roof space to the utilities for solar panels. He did share that this arrangement would not work well here for several reasons one minor one being the frequency of hurricanes. Two knowledgeable representatives from FPL attended and shared some very good information on taking advantage of their rebates and other initiatives some of which can be viewed at: http://www.fpl.com/business/savings/rebates_and_incentives.shtml

Hamad Rodriquez, the principal of Hamed Rodriguez Architects Inc. and Co-Owner of Energy Cost Solutions Group, LLC holds the esteemed honor of designing the first LEED Gold building in Dade County. His message was clear. Since LEED is a rating system, there are several points already built into our code and it is not difficult to make some conscientious and simple changes to achieve LEED certification and make a significant difference in the energy and water use of a building while creating a healthy environment for occupants. He also brought up that EA (Energy and Atmosphere) Credit One is just a portion of LEED, yet can still reduce energy costs and help the environment. You can download your own checklist from his web-site to see how close your building might be to earning LEED certification. http://www.energycostsolutionsgroup.com/

For more information of Miami’s office space market, please feel free to contact me at anytime at 786-433-2376.

Louise Bendix
ComReal Miami, Inc.

No comments: