News

NJ BIZ:  November 2011
Bullish on Green Building

Costs have come down and incentives abound for environmentally friendly construction and energy-saving technology.

By Sharon Sheridan, Contributing Writer

Six years ago, RJ Donnelly started attending programs sponsored by the New Jersey chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and he realized that environmentally sustainable buildings offered a huge opportunity to Donnelly Industries. Three years later, the Wayne business launched its Donnelly Energy Solutions division, which upgrades buildings to make them more energy-efficient and incorporate renewable energy into their operations. Donnelly also includes a construction division, which focuses on new “green” construction, and a facilities management division.

Today, while many former competitors who did not switch to green building are out of business or “pared to skeleton crews,” Donnelly has continued to grow and hire through the recession. It now employs about 100 people.

“We identified a trend. We took a risk on it, but it’s paid off big-time,” says Donnelly, who is also a U.S. Green Building Council board member for the state chapter. “It’s really been a boom.”

With environmentally friendly construction materials now commonplace and tax breaks and cost savings available for sustainable energy users, consumers no longer must choose between traditional buildings and higher-cost environmentally sustainable ones.

“Ten years ago, recycled materials were the exception rather than the rule, and there probably was a 10 percent premium to ordering those materials,” says Florence Block, executive director of the New Jersey council chapter.

Major manufacturers now off er recycled and nontoxic materials, from carpeting to low- or no-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints. “Today, it’s so mainstream,” Block says. “It’s very easy to find those resources.” 

“What a lot of people don’t realize,” Donnelly adds, “is the old way of designing and building and operating buildings is gone.” 

“Some people don’t get it. They continue to build to the traditional model. It costs them more and more to Operate their business because of the cost of energy,” he says. But increasing numbers are choosing green building because “the buildings are so much more efficient and so much cheaper to operate.” 

For Donnelly Industries, “It’s a pretty lucrative opportunity, and it’s also the right thing [to do].” 

The company’s own sustainably constructed building is a prime example, with a solar array on the roof and a contract to buy any electricity it doesn’t generate from an energy Company providing power only from renewable resources. The new building saves 40 percent in operating costs and, thanks to “enormous federal and state incentives,” will pay back the cost of the solar installation in less than three years, Donnelly says.

Solar is a growing piece of green building in New Jersey, says Mark Warner, CEO of Flemington-based Sun Farm Network, which employs 25 people. Launched in 2002, the company was one of the founding members Of the state’s solar industry, he says. “We’re basically doubling in size every year.” 

While solar panels are largely made in Asia, that only represents 30 to 40 percent of the cost of the end product, he notes. “The nice thing about solar is that there is a large local component to it.” Engineers, managers, installers – “That work can’t be outsourced. Everything that I do in this company can’t be done in Asia.”

Sun Farm has built hundreds of solar systems in the state, including residential, farm and faith-based and other nonprofit organization projects.
“Our biggest market is the commercial segment: office buildings, warehouses, industrial buildings,” Warner says. “One of the big trends in New Jersey is that we’re able to put the parking lots to work by building canopy structures that have solar arrays on them.”

At St. Peter’s University Hospital, for example, Sun Farm recently began work on a 2.2 megawatt solar installation involving two traditional roof arrays, three solar canopies on large open-field parking lots and a fourth on the top level of a parking deck.

New Jersey is among the top five solar markets in the world, second only to California in the United States, Warner says. It boasts 46 kilowatts per square mile, with 10,000 solar systems – most built in the last three or four years – providing 400 megawatts of generation capacity, or enough to power 40,000 average homes annually.

Many businesses now look for LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, building certification. The Green Building Council developed the standards for the voluntary accreditation, which the independent Green Building Credentialing Institute administers, Block explains. Based on criteria related to site selection, energy and atmosphere, indoor environmental quality, water efficiency, materials and resources, and innovation and design, buildings in various categories – including new construction and major renovations – can achieve LEED ratings ranging from basic to platinum. The council periodically revises the standards – adding greater energy-efficiency criteria, for example, Block says.

As of August, New Jersey had nearly 100 LEED-certified buildings. One thousand individuals representing 600 companies belong to the New Jersey council chapter, with most members coming from businesses of 25 to 75 employees, Block says. “We are considered one of the top nine active chapters in the country.
We’re looked upon as providing a number of best practices, especially in the 
field of education.” 

Thanks to a New Jersey Department of Labor grant, the council has provided LEED training to more than 700 employees in the state, she says. “We’re also involved with working with the Legislature as a resource for technical information for LEED-related legislation.

“The early adopters of LEED and sustainable building were predominantly architects and engineers,” she says. Today, developers, lawyers and others who originally dismissed sustainable building as too expensive are coming on board, she says. “It’s no longer a commodity; it’s mainstream.” 

One way to make green building affordable is to use an integrated design process, with everyone involved working together from the beginning instead of starting with one design and then adding sustainable elements later, she notes. Design it this way, and the cost is virtually the same as for a similar traditional building – plus you reap the benefits of lower energy costs and tax breaks, she says. “In the long run, it’s cheaper.” 

Hartz Mountain Industries established a sustainable group within the company four years ago and analyzed what it took to make a building “green.” 

“For Hartz, that was a unique problem because of our large holdings,” says Vince Antonacci, vice president of architecture for the sustainable group.

Hartz has moved forward with a variety of green projects, including a $385,000 renovation of its own 260,000-square-foot headquarters in Secaucus that has applied for LEED Silver certification. A Sheraton in Weehawken achieved silver status. Projects underway, all aiming for LEED certification, include a 581-unit residential complex in Weehawken, a 120-unit complex in Secaucus and a lifestyle center at the former Ford plant in Edison.

Green building is “all-encompassing,” says Antonacci. “It’s a wholistic approach to an entire building.” Should a building start out not-sogreen, progressive renovations can make improvements over time. This could include changing light bulbs and modifying heating and cooling systems.

“It’s all the small, little details that, once they’re addressed, add up to quite a lot,” he says.

“We have sustainable guidelines that are included in the work that we do for renovation of spaces,” while new projects aim for LEED certification, Antonacci says. “Hartz is into solar quite heavily. We have a lot of warehouses, and we’ve put on, I think now, about 8 megawatts of solar.” They’re building a solar farm in South Jersey that should generate another 8 megawatts and have added solar arrays to retail establishments as well.

Like others, Antonacci says the cost of green building decreased as once-specialized products became more standard. “Depending on the size of the project, the impact may be somewhat negligible,” he says. “It’s attention to detail. And if things are approached properly from the very beginning, you find that when the buildings are more efficient you do get a return from the operating expenses. Also, there are rebate programs in New Jersey and New York that offset some of the cost.” 

While the cost of green products has decreased, the costs of a certified consultant for achieving LEED status still can increase the costs of sustainable building, says Dorothy Zarnik, founding principal of Iselin-based Aztec Architects, which employs about 30 people in New Jersey.

Typically Aztec’s larger clients – those with properties of 30,000 square feet or more – are the ones seeking LEED certification, she says.

“I see a huge trend of bringing work stations down to a lower level, letting light in. I’m seeing a lot less private offices, and if there are private 
offices, they’re on the interior so as not to block the window light,” she says.

Many products used for building interiors, such as carpeting, are “just inherently green,” she says. “So even if you’re not trying, a lot of the material that’s going into new office space is very green. It’s just how you use it all together and document [it] that really gets you the LEED status.” 

When it comes to green building in New Jersey, roadblocks include the lack of credit that has plagued businesses in general during the current economy and ignorance about sustainable building, which the Green Building Council tries to address, Donnelly says.

Donnelly Energy Solutions has retrofitted 500 buildings in New Jersey, mostly municipal buildings and schools, for greater energy efficiency. The Weichert Corporate Office in Morris Plains, for example, will save $20,253 annually and receive $170,192 in federal and state incentives on a $212,740 retrofit with a payback time of just over two years. The Rockaway River Country Club saves $12,760 on a $87,481 retrofit that netted $50,000 in incentives, with a payback of less than three years. A $100,822 retrofit involving high-efficiency lighting and occupancy sensors will save Morris Catholic High School in Denville $45,533 yearly in energy costs and had a payback of less than a year after receiving $80,658 in incentives. Current projects include a LEED gold renovation of a dorm at Bonnie Brae School in Liberty Corner and a total-building energy retrofit of Brogan Cadillac in Totowa that will include a 600 kilowatt solar array.

“We only build LEED-certified buildings. We know when we run the numbers it makes financial sense,” Donnelly says. “A lot of people are skeptical, but little by little we’re getting there.”
-END-

SEPARATE SIDEBAR ARTICLE:

Metal Buildings, Building Green

By Authur Hance, President of Home Construction

When you say ‘metal building’, many still think of Quonset huts, the pre-fabricated steel buildings that most people associate with World War II era army barracks. But modern techniques, materials and laboratory testing ensure that today’s metal buildings are attractive and energy efficient. In fact, metal buildings often provide superior sustainability and cost savings for building owners.

Even for those property owners who know that metal buildings have made some progress in the last 60 years, these structures still create images of large gray warehouses that waste energy faster than you can blink. But today’s metal buildings can provide virtually unlimited design options and have actually made green building affordable.

“Metal roofs and walls off er an unbeatable level of environmental performance and aesthetic appeal,” concluded an industry report based on a U.S. Green Building Council Continuing Education program. “They are sustainable, have low impact on the environment, reduce solid waste in construction, help reduce energy usage in all climates, and improve the air quality and water efficiency in buildings and their surroundings. They can be applied to all types of buildings in any climate and offer designers and building owners a variety of visible options and behind-the-scene operating benefits.” 

As president elect of the Metal Building Contractors and Erectors Association (MBCEA) Mid-Atlantic Division, I recently had the opportunity to co-author the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Continuing Education program on metal building and sustainability and design that is provided through the MBCEA. We presented the program, titled “Pre-Engineered Metal Building Sustainability and Design,” at METALCON International, our industry’s premier professional event.

The message for both people in the metal construction industry and property owners is simple: Building attractive, safe and energy-efficient buildings has never been more important. The good news for property owners is that metal buildings today are the right choice for cost-effective, expeditious construction, particularly in markets where there is a demand for quality, quickly delivered buildings.”

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