commentThe Top 100 Green Contractors
... market has slowed, the public market has picked up,” says Carol Moore, head of the sustainability group at Gilbane Building. She says almost all of Gilbane’s public-sector projects are going LEED, mostly to LEED Silver level.
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“As the market contracts, we have seen more money flow into the public sector where green building is prevalent,” says Deane. He says many of these projects are in renovation programs. For example, Turner recently completed New York City’s largest green roof atop the U.S. Postal Service’s 2.2-million Morgan Mail Processing Facility in Manhattan, and on Aug. 24 announced it had won a $110-million project to renovate and upgrade into a high-performance building Chicago’s Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.
LEED’s New Focus
A major development in green building was this year’s unveiling of LEED 2009, the requirements of which were slowly released over the course of the spring. The prospect of this new LEED standard may have led to an increase in registrations earlier this year. Some contractors say that some owners, beginning late last year, worried the new LEED ’09 standards would be much more stringent or costly. Many rushed to register their projects under LEED 2.2 so they could be grandfathered under the old system with which they were familiar before June 26, when all new registrations are required to be under LEED ’09.
“There was a lot of worry among clients about the new LEED standards before the details were released,” says Cullen. “Everyone jumped in to grandfather their projects under LEED 2.2 right up to the deadline,” says Peter Skirbst, vice president of Haskell. He says there was a lot of apprehension among customers about what LEED ’09 would bring, causing a flurry of registrations.
Such an attitude may be a remnant of earlier days, when green materials and products were few and far between. This led to the belief that there is a big premium to sustainable construction. “There still is this perception of a premium, with some owners saying they can’t afford to build green,” says Moore. She says green products and materials are now commonplace and that major contractors already have made green building practices a way of doing business. Now, green building carries little added costs. “You just do what you were going to do anyway, but you do it right,” she says.
Most contractors say the transition from LEED 2.2 to ’09 does not appear to be causing a major upheaval. “We have seen some of our clients register their projects early to give themselves the option of proceeding under the old system or the under LEED ’09,” says Browne. She says several clients decided to build under the LEED 2.2, but a couple decided to go with LEED ’09.
Cullen, however, believes there may be some added costs under the new standards for projects going for LEED Silver certification. “For LEED Platinum, the requirements are comparable so there shouldn’t be any added costs,” he says. Browne believes it is too early to tell whether the new standards will add to costs.
The new LEED ’09 standards now place more emphasis on energy and water conservation than the previous version of LEED. Many contractors applaud this change, saying this reflects owners’ growing concerns about energy efficiency and operating cost savings. “Owners are very concerned about energy costs” and are looking at green building as a possible answer, says Gilbane’s Roger. “Now, owners care less about bike racks than whether they will save money on energy costs,” says Browne.
Skirbst of Haskell says past experience tends to validate the effectiveness of green building. “The new green products from vendors have been vetted and the end results seem to work,” he says. “Our experience with our customers seems to track.” He says Haskell has been able to both design and construct with a focus on the most cost-effective facility.
Most contractors believe that once the market rebounds, the green market will grow even faster. But some worry about a possible casualty of the recession: new green-building product manufacturers. “Some product manufacturing start-ups could end up being hurt by the recession and may not be there when the market comes back,” says Roger.
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