Page 24 —
COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL
— December 3-December 16, 2014
Property Management
D
enver buildings are sit-
ting on an untapped
wealth of savings, and
the city and county of Denver is
calling on local building own-
ers to unlock billions of dollars
in these reserves. The key to
achieve this is to make our build-
ings significantly more energy
efficient by measuring energy
use and making improvements
based on these findings.
While it is proven that energy-
efficient buildings offer lower
operating costs, barriers continue
to prevent owners and tenants
from seeing the benefits. One
barrier is a split incentive – capi-
tal upgrades are made by the
building owner and energy costs
are usually paid by the tenant.
Another barrier is that efficien-
cy upgrades are paid from the
capital budget, yet the energy
savings are seen in the operat-
ing budget, and these two bud-
gets are often set independently.
Lastly, there is still little informa-
tion in the market comparing the
energy performance of different
buildings, which keeps building
owners in the dark about how
their buildings are performing.
The city and county of Den-
ver launched the Denver City
Energy Project Oct. 28. The goal
is to generate $1.3 billion in ener-
gy savings from Denver’s larg-
est commercial and multifam-
ily buildings
by enabling
$340 million
in energy effi-
ciency
up-
grades
in
those build-
ings. The sav-
ings estimates
are based on
models pub-
lished in “Un-
ited
States
Building Effi-
ciency Retro-
fits: Market
Sizing and
F i n a n c i a l
Models,” from the Rockefeller
Foundation and Deutsche Bank
Group, March 2012.
The launch event, held at the
Brown Palace Hotel and Spa,
had around 200 attendees. Key
speakers included Denver Dep-
uty Mayor Cary Kennedy and
Doug Linkhart, executive direc-
tor of Denver Department of
Environmental Health, as well as
CEP project partners from Build-
ing Owners and Managers Asso-
ciation Denver Metro Chapter,
the Energy Efficiency Business
Coalition, International Facility
Management Association Den-
ver Chapter and Xcel Energy.
As the project’s first step,
DCEP encourages building
owners to benchmark and dis-
close their energy use to the city.
Benchmarking refers to the pro-
cess of measuring and compar-
ing performance metrics. In the
building industry, the Energy
Star Portfolio Manager program
is the standard benchmarking
tool and is free to use. To date,
57 private building owners have
voluntarily benchmarked their
buildings and shared their score
and energy use intensity with
the city. A full list of participants
is available at
.
org/cep.
In return, these building own-
erswill receive trainingonhowto
benchmark and improve build-
ing efficiency, and assistance in
engaging building occupants to
improve building performance.
Participants will also help Den-
ver develop the most effective
programs and outcomes.
At the launch event, the Brown
Palace announced that over the
past two years the hotel saved 26
percent on electricity costs and 24
percent on natural gas costs per
occupied room. Changes include
a guest room lighting retrofit that
aims to provide a 167 percent
return on investment, and a new
laundry system that is projected
to save 54 percent in energy use
while providing more than a 200
percent return on investment in
Katrina Managan
senior adviser, Denver
City Energy Project,
Department of
Environmental
Health, city and
county of Denver
Griffis/Blessing was chosen
by Ellen Edwards Farewell
Trust to manage the Prominent
Point Shopping Center at 9625
Prominent Point on the north
side of Colorado Springs. Ten-
ants of the 100 percent-occu-
pied, 11,814-square-foot retail
center include the Little Gym
of Colorado Springs, Prominent
Point Dental Group and Ortho-
dontics, Sally Beauty Supply
and FrostBites.
“We are excited for the oppor-
tunity to work with another
California investor on this strip
retail shopping center,” said
Senior Vice President Richard
Davidson, CPM. “Our profes-
sional reputation working with
out-of-state owners and exten-
sive retail management portfo-
lio make us a perfect fit for this
assignment.”
Jeremiah Nease, CPM, heads
the commercial property ser-
vices team handling the day-to-
day operations with the assis-
tance of Gwen Hughes, port-
folio assistant, Chad Achterhof,
property accountant, and Tony
Brizzie, service technician.
s
Property Management News
The Prominent Point Shopping Center in Colorado Springs will be
managed by Griffis/Blessing.
Universal Protection Service provides the best security
solutions, personalized customer service and unmatched
value available. We now also offer our clients Safety Act
protection from the Department of Homeland Security.
Universal offers an expansive range of security solutions,
consultations and investigations for properties of
every type, including:
Airports
Corporate Campuses
Distribution/Manufacturing
Facilities
Government Facilities
Healthcare Facilities
Office Buildings
Petrochemical Facilities
Residential Communities
Retail Centers
Educational Facilities
For more information call
Lorie Libby at 303-901-9037
