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Gerding Edlen Development is a progressive commercial real estate development services firm committed to socially and environmentally responsible development. Our development work has brought many positive influences to communities in Oregon, Washington, and California with such mixed-use developments as The Brewery Blocks and South Waterfront; educational facilities for Portland State University and Pacific University; and new facilities for clients such as Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU), Wieden + Kennedy (W+K), and The Columbian newspaper. The founding partners have been the company’s spiritual leaders in pursuing an environmentally responsible agenda, and visionaries in identifying sites for successful and catalytic development. We embrace sustainable development as a key guiding principle in all aspects of our business – from the buildings we build to our company operating practices. Gerding Edlen is at the forefront of sustainable design in the private sector. With 33 buildings targeting LEED certification, Gerding Edlen strives to be an industry leader in energy conservation and resource use. The energy use of a building has a significant impact on the environment and the bottom line. We focus on lowering the cost of energy to building owners by reducing the building’s overall consumption through investment in energy efficient systems. Our buildings are typically 30% more efficient than standard buildings and strive to achieve the balance between aesthetics and energy impact. Several of our earliest projects speak to our leadership in energy and resource-efficient design. The Pacific Gas Transmission Building (1996) was the first commercial Energy Demonstration project in Oregon. The project employed a number of pioneering energy conservation and environmental methods ranging from light shelves to ice storage machines resulting in less use of chiller energy during peak daytime hours. In the W+K headquarters project (1999), a five-story atrium was incorporated to create open, lively space filled with natural light. The daylighting, combined with high efficiency task lighting, keeps light levels in workspaces at just 22-30 foot candles. All combined, the energy efficient measures at W+K save 470,000 kWh and more than $21,000 a year. More recently, the OHSU Center for Health & Healing (CHH) installed the first large-scale onsite microturbine plant in Oregon (300kW), which is projected to generate 4,527,000 kWh and 154,00 therms of electricity per year with a cost savings of $48,000 using the standard gas rate and a payback of ten years or less. These microturbines meet nearly one-third of the building’s electrical energy needs, partially from waste heat, while eliminating nearly two-thirds of the losses in the electric grid from purchased utility power. Many of the sustainable features of the building have never before been used on a project of this kind, a high-tech medical facility, which recently received a LEED Platinum rating from the USGBC. Another form of energy harnessed at CHH is arguably the most innovative of its kind in the West. The 15th and 16th floors of the building’s south façade was transformed into a giant solar air collector. Several large sheets of low-iron glass were placed 48 inches from the skin and sealed tightly. As air rises between the building skin and the glass it is heated by the sun. The ensuing greenhouse effect produces warm air, which is moved through the air handling units across a heat exchanger and used to preheat domestic water. Another benefit: by doubling as an extra skin (trombe wall), the solar collector warms the clinic and lab spaces in the winter and reduces the amount of heating otherwise needed. The system offsets about 1% of the energy use in the building, requires almost no maintenance, and serves to educate the design community by showing how passive strategies can be successfully incorporated into buildings. The total cost of the system was $386,000 and it is expected to save approximately $6,600 annually -- a payback of just over ten years. Another recent recipient of the LEED Platinum rating is the Gerding Theater at The Armory. Systems used include chilled beams for cooling in lieu of a fan-driven HVAC system to reduce energy use by 40%, displacement and underfloor ventilation, and daylighting strategies including skylights in the administrative offices. Implementing these innovative systems required incredible focus and vision to create a new energy efficient and modern theater inside an existing 116 year old historic shell. Additional pioneering methods and innovative systems include both building-integrated and stand-alone photovoltaic systems at Block 4 of the Brewery Blocks (21 kW and 7% of the power needed for the core and shell building system at a cost of $271,000 and an expected annual savings of $1,500), OHSU’s CHH (60 kW; system cost: $500,000 with a payback of just over 10 years) and The Casey condominiums (23 kW at a cost of $230,000); energy recovery ventilators that capture heat from exhaust air to pre-heat fresh air entering individual condominium units (The Casey); and chilled beams for passive building conditioning (The Gerding Theater and CHH). The Henry, completed in 2002, is a 15-story condominium tower over ground floor retail. Utilizing variable speed exhaust fans, high efficiency water heating, exhaust air heat recovery, and reduced lighting loads, the building has achieved impressive energy savings. During the first 13 months of operation, The Henry’s average daily energy usage of 30 kBtu per square foot was only 63% of the initial design model and only 43% of the baseline model. On the basis of the actual-to-baseline comparisons, the building generates annual financial savings of $0.47 per conditioned square foot. The present value of these savings over 25 years, assuming a constant level of savings and utility rate increases at the rate of inflation, is about $8.25 per conditioned square foot. To achieve these results, Gerding Edlen works closely with community partners such as the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, the Energy Trust of Oregon, the Oregon Department of Energy and many others to support and promote energy efficiency. We also provide to our building tenants and residents educational materials on how to conserve energy in tenant improvement build-out decisions or in simple ways, such as using programmable thermostats correctly and choosing Energy Star appliances. We have challenged ourselves to reduce energy use in our buildings by 50%. We expect that within five yeas, our new buildings will generate more energy than they use and consume more waste than they produce. We will achieve these goals with continued creative thinking and an integrated design process, along with the guidance of the Natural Step principles, the USGBC’s LEED rating system, and Cascadia’s Living Building Challenge. It is evident that Gerding Edlen works diligently to be a model of sustainable business practices. Together with our project teams and our partners in the broader community, we are helping to reverse the reputation of the development industry as an environmentally irresponsible resource consumer. Gerding Edlen supports the sustainability movement by encouraging other developers and openly sharing knowledge and lessons learned with them and the community. We often host policy makers, developers, energy specialists, educational groups, and potential clients to demonstrate our sustainable developments. For example, we hosted a day long session with a development firm out of Colorado to discuss our sustainability practices and toured them through our local projects.
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