800 17th Street/PNC Place
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Vornado Realty Trust is making some of the world's largest commercial buildings green. Last year, the company's 3.3-million-square-foot Merchandise Mart in Chicago received Silver LEED-EB certification from the U.S. Green Building Council—a rare and impressive achievement for such a large project.
Vornado has used its success with the greening of the Merchandise Mart to launch a company-wide sustainability program. "At Vornado, we believe in sustainability and that sensitivity to our environment is a critical aspect of our business," says Chairman and CEO Steven Roth.
Vornado believes that its existing 100 million-square-foot portfolio offers the biggest opportunity to make a large impact with sustainability.
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Mitchell Schear, president of Vornado's Washington, D.C. division, is responsible for establishing best practices in sustainability on a company-wide basis. The company's operating platforms has its own sustainability task force with 10 to 12 people.
"We have not created any sustainability positions. Instead, we have melded it into everyday business," Schear says. Through these task forces, Vornado is able to share best practices as well as test and pilot new technologies. For example, Schear's division installed waterless urinals in the men's restrooms in its building to see what kind of impact they had on water usage and conservation.
Vornado is focused on making its development pipeline sustainable by using LEED standards. Schear says the company strives for LEED Gold for most of its projects. However, Vornado believes that its existing 100 million-square-foot portfolio offers the biggest opportunity to make a large impact with sustainability. The company is evaluating all its properties and using a variety of outside consultants to direct its green efforts.
While some of Vornado's green efforts include simple measures, such as using green cleaning materials and recycling in its buildings, others are large projects with hefty price tags. In New York City, for example, the REIT is developing a large co-generation plant for One Penn Plaza, a 2.4 million-square-foot building that uses 45 million kilowatts of energy per year.
The co-generation plant, developed in partnership with Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based Endurant Energy, will replace the building's energy with clean energy. "We think it will have positive payback within a reasonably short period of time," Schear says.
Vornado also is starting to make an impact on sustainability through its relationships with tenants, vendors and contractors, Schear says. "With tenants, we have the opportunity to help them be more sustainable," he says, adding that the REIT has the option of requiring certain levels of sustainability through its leases. The company also has the opportunity to leverage its buying power to encourage its vendors and contractors to operate more sustainably.
"We're at the beginning stages, and so far it's been more of a collaborative process," Schear says. "The sustainability movement is moving so rapidly that we're on a learning curve together with our tenants, vendors and contractors."
— Jennifer D. Duell
Correction: Real Estate Portfolio published the photo of Vornado's 1999 K Street in the print version of this article. 800 17th Street/PNC
Place is shown above.
