February 4-February 17, 2015 —
COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL
— Page 21
For the past 33 years, SMPS Colorado
has come together with the A/E/C
industry’s marketing elite for an evening
of celebration to honor the most creative
and successful marketing collateral from
the past year. The Marketing Excellence
Awards features exclusive categories to
highlight the strengths of our industry and
all submittals will be showcased at the
award celebration. One winner from each
category will be recognized and honored
not only by their peers, but the Society for
Marketing Professional Services, for their
marketing excellence in 2014.
Help us honor the nominees and the
winners of the prestigious Leonard Award,
Business Developer of the Year, Marketer
of the Year and the Member of the Year.
We look forward to seeing you there!
SMPS UPCOMING A/E/C MARKETING EVENTS
2015 MARKETING EXCELLENCE AWARDS
March 5, 2015 | 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm | Sherman Event Center | 11770 Sherman Street | Denver
SMPS/AGC JOINT HAPPY HOUR
February 5, 2015 | 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm | Blue Bonnet | 457 South Broadway | Denver
EDUCATION LUNCHEON: Monthly Luncheon
February 11, 2015 | 11:30 am – 1:00 pm | Crowne Plaza | 1450 Glenarm Place | Denver
CURRENT AND PROSPECTIVE MEMBER MIXER
March 18, 2015 | 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm | TBD
A/E/C MARKETING BOOTCAMP
March 27, 2015 | 8:00 am – 4:30 pm | Palace Construction | 7 South Galapago Street | Denver
CURRENT AND PROSPECTIVE MEMBER MIXER
May 6, 2015 | 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm | TBD
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Construction, Design & Engineering
R
obert Frost famous-
ly said in his poem
“Mending Wall” that
“good fences make good neigh-
bors.” This philosophy obvi-
ously applies to demising walls
in multifamily construction,
and sound isolation in these
buildings is given due con-
sideration by building codes,
designers and lawyers when
things go wrong. This adage
also applies to another build-
ing type where sound isolation
is often overlooked: shopping
centers.
Many types of retail and
commercial tenants can coex-
ist happily in shopping centers
because they are not especially
loud or particularly sensitive to
intruding noises. Other types
of use are not well suited to
shopping centers, but they can
be made to work with the right
planning and construction.
Fitness centers are the most
common offenders but there
are many other types of ten-
ants that can cause problems,
some of which may be unex-
pected. Here are some prob-
lematic tenants that our firm
has encountered: bars with
live music (a growing problem
with the increasing popularity
of microbreweries); rock band-
style music instruction schools;
dance studios; indoor shooting
ranges; vet clinics, kennels or
doggie day-cares with bark-
ing dogs; a tanning salon with
noisy ventilation equipment; a
golf store with an indoor driv-
ing range; a ski rental store
with a ski tuning machine; and
a chiroprac-
tor ’s office
with a special
ad j us tmen t
table.
At
the
other
end
of the spec-
trum are ten-
ants that are
more noise-
sensitive and
require great-
er separation
from
their
n e i g h b o r s ,
such as spas
or salons with quiet massage
or treatment rooms. In either
situation, the typical existing
demising wall in a shopping
center will probably not pro-
vide enough sound isolation.
The first step to avoiding
problems is awareness of the
issue on the part of tenants
and property managers when
selecting a site. End-cap units
are better for noisy or noise-
sensitive tenants because it
limits them to just one neigh-
bor and one demising wall to
deal with. Single-story build-
ings with slab-on-grade con-
struction help avoid sound
transfer issues through floors
and ceilings.
Once a site has been selected,
the condition and performance
of the existing demising walls
can be evaluated. An experi-
enced acoustical consultant
can help establish design cri-
teria based on the tenant type,
evaluate the existing condi-
tions and make recommenda-
tions to meet the criteria. Some
investigative demolition might
be required to understand the
existing wall construction.
Acoustical field testing also can
be performed to determine the
existing level of sound isola-
tion between spaces. Even a
nonscientific test can be infor-
mative, such as playing loud
music from a stereo in a poten-
tial space and listening next
door.
Site visits are recommend-
ed rather than working solely
from drawings because there
are often issues in the field
that won’t be shown on the
drawings. Spaces in shopping
centers are frequently com-
bined, separated and reconfig-
ured over the years, leaving
behind a patchwork of differ-
ent wall constructions, filled-in
doorways and other potential
sound leaks. A site visit will
help identify potential issues,
such as walls that do not seal
against a fluted metal deck,
unsealed penetrations through
walls, ductwork that passes
between tenants and so on.
Improving the sound isola-
tion for a noisy or noise-sensi-
tive tenant likely will require
adding layers of gypsum board
to the walls or even building
a new freestanding stud wall
next to the existing wall. Obvi-
ously this is much easier and
cheaper to do before the tenant
moves in, so it is vital that the
sound isolation is addressed
up-front and not after the fact.
In addition to demising walls
themselves, other flanking
paths can lead to problems.
The intersection between the
demising wall and a storefront
window system often allows
sound leaks. Free-weights hit-
ting the floor in a fitness cen-
ter can transmit sound and
vibration into adjacent tenants,
even through a concrete slab
on grade. If there is no ceiling
in the space, sound can flank
through the exposed light-
weight roof deck and HVAC
systems. Typical exterior win-
dows and doors do not pro-
vide much sound isolation,
and sound transfer to the out-
doors can sometimes bother
neighbors.
Although there are no build-
ing codes to regulate sound
isolation in shopping centers,
special lease language can
be added to establish allow-
able levels of sound transfer
from noisy tenants based on
industry standards. This lease
language can either use sub-
jective, nuisance-based limits
or objective limits based on
decibel levels. For everyone’s
protection, the latter option is
preferable. Establishing decibel
limits in octave bands gives
the designers a target that they
can design to, and it is easier
to demonstrate compliance
after completion. Subjective
limits based on complaints are
harder to enforce and can lead
to more hassles for the prop-
erty manager and the tenants.
Sometimes tenants will even
use noise complaints as lever-
age to disrupt adjacent tenants
that they don’t get along with
for other reasons.
The party responsible for
modifying the demising wall
and meeting the criteria must
be clearly established. In some
situations, a new noise-sensi-
tive tenant might move in next
to an existing noisy tenant and
the existing wall is inadequate.
Who should be responsible for
upgrading the wall in that situ-
ation? These decisions should
be made before the lease agree-
ment is completed.
The cost of upgrading the
construction should be con-
sidered when selecting a site.
Good walls make good neigh-
bors, but sometimes the best
option is to put a noisy tenant
in a stand-alone building with
no neighbors at all.
s
Ben Seep
Senior acoustical
consultant, D.L.
Adams Associates,
Denver
Although there
are no building
codes to regulate
sound isolation in
shopping centers,
special lease
language can be
added to establish
allowable levels
of sound transfer
from noisy tenants
based on industry
standards.
