Case Study:
National Association of Realtors Building

A Beacon for Sustainability

By Nadav Malin

The green agenda was never an afterthought for the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) Washington, D.C. offices—it was there from the beginning. But it was not the project’s primary goal: Its aim was to create a landmark building that would give NAR a higher profile and better visibility (literally) from the halls of Congress. Gund Partnership and its consultants created such a landmark. “The taxi drivers all know it,” says NAR spokesman Lucien Salvant. By using the LEED Rating System as a framework for design, the team also created a building that makes a strong environmental statement.

NAR searched all over the Capitol district for a location for its Washington, D.C., offices before settling on a small, derelict brownfield site. The project was built by local developer Lawrence Brandt as a build-to-suit speculative office building, of which NAR was to take ownership and occupy several floors. Special District of Columbia bonds, made available because the site was in a designated Enterprise Zone for economic development, helped finance the project.

Recognizing the triangular site’s potential as a focal point—it is created by the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and First Street—NAR instigated a design competition to create the landmark building. Boston-based Gund Partnership won that competition and embarked on an odyssey that resulted in a building that is not only visually dramatic, but also Washington’s first LEED-certified new building.

In addition to the unusual geometry of the site, the designers had to contend with a previously approved conceptual design that looked a lot like its neighbors, with concrete or masonry facades and punched openings. “These are very important places, these slim lots where roads come together at an angle,” notes partner-in-charge Graham Gund, FAIA. “We felt that it called for more of an object building rather than being part of a continuous row.”

Gund Partnership had a challenging community approval process to go through while introducing their dramatic new design to replace the prior predictable one. After numerous meetings and hearings, the team ultimately prevailed after bringing a model of the neighborhood—large enough that it almost didn’t make it through the door—to a final hearing.

Design and construction of the building was on a fast track: It took only two-and-a-half years from the conclusion of the design competition to NAR’s occupancy of its space in October 2004 (and Gund Partnership was still finishing construction documents when construction began). In spite of the short time frame, a number of innovative approaches for conditioning the space were explored. The tight floor-to-floor heights prevented chilled beams and under-floor air distribution; a double curtain wall would have taken too much valuable floor space, according to Laura Cabo, AIA, principal in charge. It helped that an adjacent building shades much of the west facade, reducing the need for extreme solar-control measures. Ultimately, low-emissivity double glazing with a high shading coefficient was deemed adequate for the curtain wall.

Partner-in-charge Graham Gund, FAIA, said “We felt that it called for more of an object building rather than being part of a continuous row.”

Interior shades are controlled manually to minimize glare and excessive energy use. Maintenance staff pull the shades down each night, then employees adjust them for their own views and comfort. The interior color palate features warm, earthy colors to enhance the relaxing effect of the daylight, while the shades minimize lighting energy use.

Having been contaminated by past uses, including as a gas station, the site was an officially designated brownfield. As a result, before construction could begin, the contractors removed a 24-foot layer of soil and 533 gallons of groundwater. Given the speed of construction, reviewing submittals was a challenge. The LEED point for low-emitting adhesives and sealants was lost when a subcontractor unknowingly used the wrong product. And the team learned the hard way that the same carpet product can be procured with different levels of recycled content, depending on its exact construction. A product that they specified, believing it had 20 percent recycled content, arrived in a configuration that had only 5 percent.

NAR occupies five of the building’s 12 floors, with about 100 employees in the association’s government affairs, research, and regulatory departments. Restaurants and retailers are moving into the ground floor, and NAR has leased two more floors to tenants.

As a not fully occupied spec office building, the project achieved its LEED certification based on credits that were fulfilled by the existing construction and on a commitment that incoming tenants will adhere to the requirements of certain LEED credits, as expressed in the building’s tenant guidelines.

Because tenants are gradually moving in and building out additional floors, the commissioning process is ongoing, according to building manager Bradley Clark, of Cassidy & Pinkard. “Whatever results you had in the base building commissioning, you can throw them out when you do the tenant fit-out,” Clark says. He was pleased to discover that the highefficiency filters, used in the air-handlers to meet a LEED requirement, actually last twice as long as the simple glass mesh filters he used previously. Even though the new filters cost a lot more, he buys fewer and spends less time changing them, so in the end they provide cleaner air at no extra cost.

Clark has also found the waterless urinals “surprisingly easy to maintain.” They work well, he says, and there is no odor except when changing the cartridges. He has found it necessary to change them religiously every two months, however, because “the moment the tenant realizes that they’re bad, it’s too late.” As a result, NAR goes through a lot of cartridges, making these urinals more expensive to maintain than standard ones.

Another lesson came from the birds: Migrating swallows found the fixed louvers on the south facade to be an attractive perch, which meant that the windows had to be cleaned weekly. Once those louvers were outfitted with electrified wires, the birds no were no longer a problem.

It has been Clark’s experience that, in terms of energy performance, the building is not benefiting much from the variable-frequency drives (VFDs) on the air handlers because with small floor plates the demand for air is relatively uniform. Because “all the boxes are either open or closed,” he notes, the reduced-airflow conditions under which the VFDs can save a lot of energy are uncommon.

Ambient lighting in the office space automatically dims when daylight is sufficient, so it is not unusual to see the lamps near the perimeter putting out much less light than those nearer the core. Employees have individual task lights as well; early on they tended to use the task lighting a lot, because the space they moved from was overlit and, by contrast, the new offices seemed dark. After a few days, however, the staff came to appreciate the calming effect of the lower light levels, not to mention the great views, and began using the task lights much less frequently.

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