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| Silverstein Properties, Wilmerhale adopt green lease language Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg joined WilmerHale co-managing partner William J. Perlstein and World Trade Center developer Larry A. Silverstein at the signing of WilmerHale's 7 World Trade Center lease, which is the first to incorporate groundbreaking language crafted by industry leaders working with the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability to promote enhanced energy efficiency and sustainability. Under traditional leases, building owners are responsible for the upfront cost of energy efficiency improvements. Tenants, however, are the immediate beneficiaries of those upgrades, in the form of reduced energy costs. Because owners do not share in the benefit, they have little incentive to invest in energy upgrades. Building on the insights developed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Green Lease Forum, the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning Sustainability brought together a group of real estate and energy efficiency experts and lawyer Mark Rauch to develop new commercial lease language that allows tenants, such as WilmerHale, and owners, such as Silverstein Properties, to share the costs, as well as the benefits, of energy efficiency improvements. Current commercial office space leases allow for tenants to share the costs incurred by owners for capital improvements, but it is seldom used because of the time horizon for recouping the costs is too long. The lease announced today counts savings over the length of a projected payback period, instead of the useful life of the improvements, shortening the amount of time it takes for the owner to recoup the money from savings, thus making it more likely the owner and tenant will make capital improvements. The City's commercial office space leases are negotiated by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. DCAS will add the green lease language to all new lease negotiations. WilmerHale, a law firm currently located at 399 Park Avenue, will occupy 210,000 square feet of space on floors 41 through 45 of 7 World Trade Center, the City's first LEED-certified. With WilmerHale's commitment, 7 WTC is now 90 percent leased. 7 World Trade Center's environmental design features include state-of-the-art ultra-clear exterior glass technology, high-efficiency air filtration, energy and water conservation technologies and 15, 000 square feet of open park space. write your comments about the article :: © 2011 Construction News :: home page |