November 2015 — Property Management Quarterly —
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with the potential to pursue NZW
across an entire portfolio, recogniz-
ing that some buildings and sites
will have greater water reduction
and water quality improvement
opportunities than others.
Finally, the toolkit poses the idea
of a future voluntary water trading
“credit” market, whereby building
owners in, say, a particular water-
shed could buy credits from other
buildings or sites to reach their own
water neutrality goal.
“The idea for net-zero water came
from client requests for something
akin to net-zero energy, but for
water,” said Judy Dorsey, Brendle
Group president. “It’s very fulfilling
to see net-zero water mature from a
concept, to a strategic company ini-
tiative, and now to a collaboratively
developed, actionable tool that’s uti-
lized in the field.”
To launch the initiative, a user-
friendly Microsoft Excel-based analy-
sis tool and companion guidebook
was developed with the project
team, sponsors and technical advi-
sory group. It is anticipated for use
across the public and private sec-
tors and is intended to standardize
and simplify water use analysis and
planning, while maximizing eco-
nomic returns and environmental
benefits.
The building-scale toolkit is cur-
rently available for free download
at
/
netzerowater. Subsequent phases
will focus on modules for the cam-
pus, district and neighborhood, and
community scales.
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sensitive environments, such as
hospitals and clinics.
These touch-up projects help dis-
guise impact damage, which may
include worn finish, gouges, chip/
veneer or plastic laminate dam-
age and through holes from door
hardware, etc. By cleverly disguising
these, your building tenants and
visitors experience a beautiful pre-
sentation of the property at a frac-
tion of the cost to replace.
Doors tend to take the most abuse
and usually get the least attention.
Even when a property is updated
with new paint, carpet and art,
doors usually are not included.
Doors are expensive, especially fire-
rated doors in commercial build-
ings, and therefore get passed over
in the budget. That’s where a main-
tenance plan can be beneficial.
A maintenance plan includes
touch-up and restoration not an oil/
polish plan. What is the difference?
If touch-up repairs are done prop-
erly, they are good until they are
redamaged in the same spot or the
repair is worn off from use. Repairs
should be maintenance free.
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parking garages, which take a lot of
wear and tear and are exposed to
aggressive levels of sand and salt
drippings over different seasons.
Other advantages to pursuing this
approach:
• There was no compromise in the
floor-to-ceiling clearance in the area
of repair.
• The repair would be nearly invis-
ible to passing occupants or visitors.
Anyone looking closely at the under-
side of the slab in the area of the
understrength concrete would see
only a slight difference in texture
and color as compared with the rest
of the underside of the slab.
• Where other repair methods
would include a risk of damaging
steel during concrete excavation,
this repair required no cutting or
chipping into the concrete that
encases the existing strands.
As expected when an atypical
approach is suggested to solve a
problem, questions arose. Yet the
contractor initially accepted this
solution, and as soon as the struc-
tural engineer evaluated its feasibil-
ity and endorsed it, it was smooth
sailing. However “outside the box”
the solution appeared, the developer
recognized it as the best possible
scenario – one that was safe, effi-
cient and kept construction moving
on schedule.
Today the building is a vibrant,
LEED-certified, mixed-use commer-
cial site, able to withstand its daily
traffic levels and house 115,000 sf of
office space, 13,000 sf of retail space
and 36 apartments on the top four
floors.
The developers of 16M will imple-
ment a similar design for Pivot Den-
ver, a mixed-use development at
17th and Wewatta streets to be com-
pleted in April 2018. This project,
previously called 17|W, will feature
four levels of parking, three above
grade; three 10-story apartment
towers housing 580 apartment units;
and a 56,000-sf Whole Foods Market.
As Denver’s density grows, and
the number of parcels available
for development in the downtown
area continues to shrink, issues
like those seen at 16M may become
more commonplace. Most devel-
opable land in Denver today is
brownfield and requires some level
of remediation. In fact, according
to the city and county of Denver’s
Open Data, only about 3 percent
of the parcels within the city and
county are vacant land, so develop-
ers are seeing opportunities where,
in the past, they might have seen
only problems.
But, as in the case of 16M, solu-
tions exist – even if they are bor-
rowed from other trades. What is
critical is a strong coalition between
the contractor, the supplier, special-
ty repair contractors and the engi-
neer of record. This healthy working
relationship among all the parties
involved – not any single entity –
was the reason for the successful
outcome at 16M, one that minimizes
the expense of repair and retains
the structure’s value.
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Net-Zero
Maintenance
Highway
