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Brock Environmental Center

The Brock Environmental Center, located in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean, is drawing tens of thousands of visitors as one of the world’s best examples of sustainable and resilient design. This environmental center and office for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), a leading regional environmental organization, is operating at net-zero water, waste, and energy use. The building has extremely low monthly operating costs and has raised awareness of low-impact design, helping the organization achieve its mission of protection, advocacy, education, and restoration of the bay’s environmental health.

The Brock Center is raising the bar in modeling environmentally intelligent construction and living, a CBF goal dating to its first composting toilets in the 1970s. In 2000, CBF completed a new headquarters, the Philip Merrill Environmental Center, in Annapolis, Maryland. It was the world’s first building to achieve LEED Platinum, the highest designation in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system. Completed in April 2015, the Brock Center is CBF’s second landmark building designed and constructed in concert with its natural surroundings, with minimal impact on the surrounding land, air, and waterways.

For the Brock Center, CBF and the Washington, D.C., office of architecture firm SmithGroupJJR aimed for a newer and more rigorous sustainability standard, the Living Building Challenge, intended to encourage development with a positive, regenerative impact on the environment. Certification by the International Living Future Institute requires net-zero energy and water use and waste generation, meaning the building conserves or produces as much of those three elements as it uses. It also requires avoidance of the use of fossil fuels and 300 “red list” toxic chemicals. A building’s net-zero energy, water, and waste performance must be demonstrated for a full year of operation before certification is awarded. The $8.1 million, 10,500-square-foot center has earned both LEED Platinum and Living Building certification.

“Visitors leave with the sense that sustainability and resilience are not that hard, and you don’t have to lose comfort, beauty, or efficiency to get there.”—Mary Tod Winchester, Chesapeake Bay Foundation Vice President

Beyond the building, the project included protection of the 118-acre Pleasure House Point site, a low-lying area that was the last large undeveloped parcel in Virginia Beach and had been intended for development of 1,100 high-rise condominiums and townhouse units. The city of Virginia Beach and the Trust for Public Land worked with CBF to purchase the property after the developer defaulted on loans during the economic downturn of 2008. CBF owns ten acres, which are integrated into a public conservation park that encompasses the remaining acres owned by the city.

The center features a conference room, meeting and exhibit rooms, a catering kitchen, decks, and an education pavilion, which are often used during field education experiences, seminars, community gatherings, and corporate events. More than 40,000 people have toured the building and property since it opened.

“The center reduces pollution and gives back to the environment, which is critical for the bay, and it also is an excellent education tool that clearly demonstrates to government leaders, decision makers, architects, contractors, engineers, students, teachers, and the general public about sustainability and resilience,” says Mary Tod Winchester, CBF vice president for administration.

Mitigating Risks

The Brock Center design addresses protection against high winds, storm surge, and flooding. The building is situated 200 feet from the shoreline and elevated 14 feet above sea level on cast-in-place concrete columns and spread footings—exceeding Federal Emergency Management Agency elevation requirements for 500-year flood and sea-level-rise projections. It also is designed to withstand 130-mile-per-hour winds, exceeding local code requirements. The curved roof design and building materials contribute to wind and water resilience: durability is enforced by zinc roof shingles, deep protective overhangs, and naturally rot-resistant cypress siding.

The building works to achieve water independence by using rainwater for all water needs, including drinking. Rainwater is harvested from the roof and diverted and stored in two 1,650-gallon tanks in an insulated area beneath the building. The center is the first commercial building in the United States permitted to treat rainwater for potable uses. The water is purified with filtration, ozonation, and ultraviolet treatment.

The building also collects stormwater runoff in rain gardens that filter it before it is released back into the aquifer. Graywater from sinks and a shower also flows into rain gardens. CBF, local community groups, and the city are restoring adjacent wetlands by removing invasive species to allow native plants to naturally filter and absorb stormwater and water from sea surges.

The ability of the structure to operate as a net-zero building is enabled by highly effective energy conservation features.

The center has a 45-kilowatt solar photovoltaic array on the roof and two standalone ten-kilowatt Bergey residential wind turbines that can generate more than 100 percent of the energy the building requires to operate. The solar panels contribute about 70 percent of the building’s electricity and the wind turbines about 30 percent. The building envelope is super-insulated—walls to R-35, the floor to R-31, and the roof to R-50, more than double typical thermal resistance levels for the region. The R-7 windows are argon-gas filled and triple glazed with low-emissivity coatings. The actual energy use intensity of the building is a remarkably low 14,120 Btu per square foot per year.

“The resiliency question focused on how a susceptible site like the Brock Center can be developed to withstand flooding, hurricanes, and power outages, so that the center not only can stand, but thrive during these events, even serving as a haven for the adjacent community.”—Greg Mella, SmithGroupJRR

Creating Value

CBF does not need to purchase flood insurance because of the building’s position 14 feet above sea level and above the 500-year floodplain. It is also built to withstand high winds, so it is less likely to experience damage. Fireman’s Fund Insurance offers a discount for green-certified buildings, which generates a premium savings of about $2,200 per year.

A key resilience factor is continued safe operation of the building if an extreme weather event were to reduce access to potable water or knock out the municipal water supply or wastewater treatment system. The Brock Center’s design reduces the demand for potable water by nearly 90 percent. The building has been using a very efficient 50 gallons of water—rainwater treated to be potable—per day. With daily consumption running at about one-third of the projected 145 gallons, the building is expected to perform well even in a drought. The center also holds a supply of treated potable water capable of withstanding a six-week drought. The water supply is in a mechanical loft, meaning gravity can supply water even when there is no power.

Dealing with human waste is a huge concern during disasters. The flushless composting toilets’ holding tanks under the building have been secured to the foundation in watertight concrete vaults designed to prevent waste from escaping during a flood. Small battery backups can maintain emergency lighting, security, and a toilet exhaust system for multiple days during power outages.

Cost savings to operate the net-zero-energy building have proved to be substantial. Brock produces 83 percent more energy than it consumes in a typical year. Electricity bills average about $17 per month—basically the cost of connecting to the grid—compared with $800 to $1,000 per month for a conventional office building of similar size. The center is considering using batteries to take the Brock Center entirely off the grid.

Another benefit for the building’s 25 staff employed by CBF and a partner organization is the high level of employee wellness and productivity attributable to nontoxic materials, abundant natural light, mixed-mode ventilation, and efficient geothermal heating and cooling.

An indoor environmental quality (IEQ) assessment survey of employees, including self-ratings for productivity with follow-up measurements of selected IEQ variables, found “compelling evidence that the low-energy building provided high standards of comfort” for thermal comfort, air quality, and lighting, says study director Hyojin Kim, assistant professor at the Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning. The building offers employees a high level of “adaptive opportunity,” or control over their environment, with operable windows, ceiling fans, and blinds. Studies show a close relationship between high IEQ satisfaction and productivity.

South Florida Resort

The owner is halfway through a major redevelopment that has focused on upgrades, amenities, and a transition to a resort that includes stateof- the-art meeting facilities. In the early planning stages, the redevelopment took a turn toward resilience when the owner became aware that the property, valued at more than $500 million, was vulnerable to climate change, especially increasingly intense hurricanes and tropical storm surges.

“It became clear to us that, with an asset of this value, it would be very unfortunate if we had a major storm event and lost power and water service to the property,” says the owner’s project manager. After hurricanes, for example, water intrusions and high humidity can cause mold outbreaks within days, and if the air conditioning is not working, all the building finishes could be ruined. If the entire region is hit, rebuilding timelines could be complicated by competition for resources. “We thought it would be prudent to protect the property from incurring substantial storm damage that would take over a year to recover from.”

 Mitigating Risks

The resort is designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane, during which a storm surge could reach an elevation of 16 feet. Whereas the property’s lowest occupied level is at an elevation of 20 feet, the building’s critical infrastructure systems, including the electrical service and central energy plant, were at an elevation of nine feet, making these systems vulnerable. The owner decided to raise the electrical service and to install hurricane-resistant windows, and then the owner kept adding to the list. “Once we started thinking about this, it became very clear that the various aspects of protecting the building were all interrelated,” notes the project manager.

Over the past decade, resilience strategies for the resort have included the following:

  • Development of a disaster-recovery plan that provides step-by-step procedures for preparing the site for a storm and for restoring services afterward
  • Installation of hurricane-rated windows and doors throughout the property, with largemissile impact-resistant glass on levels up to 30 feet and small-missile impact-resistant glass on levels above 30 feet
  • Relocation of the property’s electrical infrastructure to an elevation of 20 feet, well above storm-surge elevation, to protect critical electrical components—switchgears, transformers, and electrical panels. (The new equipment elevation is well above the code requirement of 12.5 feet.)
  • Construction of two new electrical service switchgear buildings with generator “quick connects” located above storm-surge elevations
  • Procurement of five emergency generators with a capacity of 2,000 kilowatts that are strategically placed after an event to provide electrical service
  • Installation of a 20,000-gallon underground diesel fuel tank to run the emergency generators for up to ten days
  • Fortification of the central energy plant to provide cooling after a hurricane
  • Fortification of the property cooling towers with a steel enclosure to protect from wind and storm-surge debris
  • Installation of a piping system between the two central energy plants to maintain cooling under adverse conditions
  • Installation of wells for a desalination unit and a 15,000-gallon underground water storage tank for the cooling tower water makeups that also could provide potable water

Creating Value

The owner estimates that its resilience investments boosted the insurable value of the property by 50 percent. The resilience investments have improved the resort’s branding and image, which has been important in the competitive high-end Florida convention business. “Many groups make their plans one to two years in advance, and this resilience gives them the confidence that the facility will be online and available even if there had been a hurricane six months before,” says the project manager.

Resilience measures lowered annual insurance premiums by an estimated $500,000, offering a significant reduction in annual operating expenses. They also have led to immediate energy savings: the impact-resistant windows are energy-efficient low-E rated and are saving approximately $110,000 per year and mitigating the resort’s contribution to global warming. The use of the on-site wells for irrigation reduces the use of city water and saves $75,000 per year.

Resilience strategies have enabled the property to maintain a competitive advantage by reducing the likelihood of building damage, shortening the duration of recovery, and adapting the site to a variety of conditions that would keep the resort operating. The owners also believe they have enhanced access to competitive financing and favorable terms. “What we’ve done is more like what institutions like hospitals and government agencies do for emergency response,” says the project manager. “This is a long-term hold for us, and this asset will stand out because of the resilience put into it.”

“ We thought it would be prudent to protect the property from incurring substantial storm damage that would take over a year to recover from.”
—Project Manager

1450 Brickell

In 2005, Alan Ojeda, the founder and CEO of Rilea Group, began planning 1450 as the second phase of a two-acre mixed-use project on Brickell Avenue, Miami’s Wall Street. (The first phase was the 36-story One Broadway apartment building. The project also includes a parking garage with 1,200 spaces, located in the lower floors of the office building, and an adjacent 12-story parking structure, which has a rooftop terrace). The 2005 commercial real estate market in Miami was in transition as a result of overbuilding and heavy damage along Brickell Avenue from Hurricane Wilma. Many high-rise buildings lost windows, suffered extensive damage, and were out of commission for an extended period.

The Miami-Dade code for commercial buildings required that the first 30 vertical feet of a building have large-missile impact-resistant glass to withstand high winds and impacts from flying debris; above 30 feet, glass had to resist small-missile impacts. But the damage from Hurricane Wilma convinced Ojeda that the code was not adequate.

Ojeda recalled that when he surveyed the area after the storm, the streets were littered with glass from windows as high as the 25th floor that had exploded or imploded. The developer, who had been planning the office building with a glass curtain wall, determined that hurricane-resistant glass needed to be even stronger and, if it was required to protect the first 30 vertical feet of a high-rise building, “why not do it for the other 500 feet?”

Mitigating Risks

Completed in 2010, the $250 million building is constructed with a poured-in-place reinforced concrete structural system that uses post-tensioned one-way slabs and beams. The entrance, lobby, and elevator corridors are elevated eight feet above grade to reflect the slope of the site, which is higher on the north side, and to raise the lobby base above the floodplain to avoid the impacts of flooding during hurricanes. The ground level also includes a breezeway, two retail banks, and spaces for two restaurants; one restaurant is at street level within the floodplain, but it includes a system of glass panels that can be put in place for protection during storms.

Ojeda worked with a veteran team of architects and consultants—including Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates Inc., architects; the Blanca Commercial Real Estate leasing team; and Coastal Construction Group as general contractor—to research impact-resistant glass and structural framing systems and to redesign the building to withstand the extra weight of heavier, more resilient glass and framing. The curtain wall consists of tempered blue glass that is nine-sixteenths of an inch thick, laminated, and constructed of layers that can resist extreme heat and impacts. The curtain wall was strengthened with heavy bolts, thick aluminum framing, and silicon to hold the glass in place.

“We spent nine months looking at glass, not only considering impact-resistant qualities but also the color and the overall quality,” says Ojeda. Windtunnel tests ensured the glass could withstand a Category 5 hurricane, in which winds can exceed 157 miles per hour, without experiencing major breaches to the building’s exterior. Ojeda requested glass with essentially twice that resistance; the more resilient glass and stronger framing added roughly $13 million to the building’s cost. Another risk following hurricanes is large-scale power outages. The building has a second backup generator that exceeds code requirements, able to run the air-conditioning and lighting systems and to provide electrical power for tenants during power outages. The backup system includes a 2,200-kilowatt emergency power generator and a 2,000-kilowatt standby power generator, capable of supplying about 50 percent of the power for air conditioning during a recovery period. The electrical vault is a “throw-over” vault with two primary feeds; if one feed loses power, the vault automatically switches to the other primary feed for continuous power.

Creating Value

Ojeda estimates that the tandem sustainability and resilience efforts increased the construction cost by 6 to 8 percent, but that these costs have been “recouped several-fold.” Spending the extra money to install high-impact resistant windows for the entire height of the building, especially during a financial crisis, was a risky undertaking: Ojeda believed it was a wise strategy for the long run. Beyond the protection the glass will provide during a severe storm, the gamble has paid off already in more competitive insurance bids and lower operating expenses. The window glass, for example, deflects heat better and has reduced the need for air conditioning, which in Miami consumes about 60 percent of a building’s electricity. Ojeda estimates that the glass and other measures have contributed to annual electricity cost savings of about $1 million.

The building’s resilience became a key marketing point, ensuring tenants that the building would continue to operate when other buildings might be out of service. Many of 1450’s 67 tenants— including J.P. Morgan Chase & Company, American Express, the H.J. Heinz Company, and Bank of New York Mellon—are based in or do business in different time zones, and the concept of continuity of operations is essential to them. Ojeda said resilience, especially the provision of the second backup generator to maintain operations, provided an edge in being able to fully lease the building by 2013, compared with the 40 percent lease-up rates of two comparable commercial properties that came to market at the same time.

The tandem sustainability and resilience investments were beneficial in several other ways: the strength of the glass and its ability to separate heat from light lowered the building’s energy intensity and was critical to earning LEED Gold certification. The building’s LEED Gold certification and resilience measures, among other factors, were assets that drew high-profile tenants who shared the developer’s commitment to sustainability. Finally, and perhaps most important, says Ojeda, building for both sustainability and resilience “is the right thing to do” to try to reduce global warming and to mitigate the effects of increasingly intense hurricanes and sea-level rise.

“The tandem sustainability and resilience efforts increased the construction cost by 6 to 8 percent but have been “recouped several-fold.”

Arverne by the Sea

In 2000, joint-venture developers the Beechwood Organization of Jericho, New York, and the Benjamin Companies of Garden City, New York, had conceived Arverne by the Sea in response to a request for proposals issued by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development intended to provide high-quality housing, services, and community amenities in areas of urban blight. While preparing an environmental impact statement for the project in 2003, the two developers studied rising sea levels and hurricanes.

Arverne has withstood a substantial test of resilience against hurricanes and sea surge, and its ability to recover quickly has helped the overall market in the Rockaways.

Michael Dubb, Beechwood founding principal, had experienced Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992 and reminded his partners they had to be prepared for significant storms and sea surges, given they were building on the coast in the potential path of hurricanes.

“That’s primarily why we raised the grade and implemented the stormwater management system,” says Gerard Romski, the attorney and project executive for Arverne. “We certainly went beyond what was required.”

When Superstorm Sandy hit, about half of the community was built, with a Stop & Shop supermarket and nearly 1,000 residential units completed. Elements such as retail and restaurant spaces, a YMCA and community center, transit plaza, and parks were still under construction. The project, due to be completed in 2017, will encompass 2,296 residential units in several building types, including multifamily condominium buildings and two- and three-level townhouse buildings with two to five attached units.

The Arverne developers returned to the site in the early hours after the hurricane to discover that the resilience measures they had put in place, such as raising the buildings out of the floodplain, had protected the majority of the community from destruction. In fact, Arverne became a regional hub and disaster response center for the peninsula in Sandy’s aftermath.

Mitigating Risks

Arverne’s first line of defense against storm surge and flooding was the wide beach and dunes—which act as nature’s barriers on islands like the Rockaways— and the Rockaway boardwalk, which ran along the beachfront. As a first order of business, the developers and the city fortified the dunes along the entire oceanfront of the property. Behind the boardwalk and dunes, a new roadway provided storm and flood protection, including a large below-grade stormwater drainage system.

To add to the natural and built defenses along the waterfront, the developers trucked in more than a half-million cubic yards of tested fill dirt to raise most of the site three feet to nine feet above the 100-year floodplain. The streets were set at angles from the beach to reduce the wind’s impact on homes during storms. Utilities, such as electrical, were installed underground. The electrical infrastructure included accessible waterproof transformers. Storm drains were placed in front yards and backyards and connected to an underground drainage system that included on-site retention and large storm drains on each property and beneath the streets.

Homes were designed to be weather resistant. Foundations had deep wooden pilings and poured reinforced concrete slabs, with homes raised at least three feet above the street level. Double-glazed, low-emissivity, pressure-resistant windows were installed. Steel framing was added to the exterior walls, which were clad with durable fiber-cement HardiePlank lap siding, and wind-resistant shingles were installed on the roof. The developers also used highly durable exterior sealants around window frames to prevent water infiltration and high-quality DuPont Tyvek Home- Wrap to withstand the elements. In the new sections of Arverne, the developers are now using the lessons they learned from Sandy to build homes even tighter and higher above the floodplain.

The community lost power during the hurricane, “but because we put our electric underground, and in a waterproof vault, we got our power back faster than anyone,” notes Romski. “We were the only area on the peninsula with power for a week and a half following the storm, and the Stop & Shop was the only supermarket on the peninsula open for six months.” Arverne became the hub of recovery activity on the peninsula; the developers opened the transit center but delayed occupancy by retail tenants for a year to allow the city to use the space for a 5,500-square-foot emergency-response center.

Creating Value

As a public/private partnership, the Arverne developers were required to purchase the land from the city and build new public infrastructure, but they invested more than required in both infrastructure and other elements that provided resiliency—an estimated $100 million, or 10 percent to 15 percent of the overall project development cost, says Romski. The fiber-cement siding, for example, cost 20 percent to 25 percent more than typical vinyl siding. The partners think the investments in durable, high-quality construction helped the project withstand damage from Sandy, enhanced the community’s reputation, and have led to higher- than-market rental and for-sale prices.

Resilience measures helped avoid significant damage to units under construction, the cost of which likely would have outstripped the value covered by the project’s construction risk policy. Most homeowners are also saving the cost of flood insurance premiums because the Arverne homes have been built at a higher grade, avoiding the flood insurance requirement.

An unforeseen benefit of resilience efforts was an improved company brand and new business. Following Sandy, the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked the developers to help get homeowners in other places on the peninsula back in their houses quickly through its Rapid Repairs program. As a homebuilder that survived Sandy, “We knew for our brand and for our community, we needed to get the community back on track,” says Romski. The developers have also become the redevelopment contractor for the borough of Queens under the NYC Build It Back program, which will build homes to replace homes that were destroyed or substantially damaged by Sandy to new more resilient standards. Arverne has withstood a substantial test of resilience against hurricanes and sea surge, and its ability to recover quickly has helped the overall market in the Rockaways. Besides the resilience features, says Romski, “it is really a testament of successful urban redevelopment. We’re very proud of it.”

The Eddy

The original plan for the site was to renovate and add floors to a former confectionary plant that had been vacant for decades. Gerding Edlen found structural deficiencies with the existing building, however, and chose instead to design and build a new one—a 16-story tower and a three-story addition for apartments, as well as two parking garages that accommodate 158 vehicles. Most of the tower building is out of the projected floodplain, so the site itself was the primary consideration for resiliency—making sure that the landscape and civic features would rebound quickly.

Designed by the Boston office of ADD Inc., which recently merged with Stantec, the project is set to be completed in 2016 and features ground-floor restaurant and retail space, a new ferry dock, and other waterfront improvements, including a 12-foot-wide extension to the East Boston Harborwalk. The redevelopment at 6 New Street is targeted for LEED Gold certification and includes amenities such as a communal chef’s kitchen, rooftop pool, conference rooms, gallery exhibition spaces, dog wash, and water sports.

Gerding Edlen worked closely with the city of Boston and the local ADD team to demonstrate that the project would be “built to last” as opposed to “built to code.” This cooperation helped expedite the entitlement process and ensure that approvals were granted at every step without problems or delays. The project’s sustainability and climate resilience measures helped the building received approvals in the fastest time the city allows.

Mitigating Risks

Resilient design and construction strategies for the project include the following:

  • Constructing a new building that is nine inches higher than the original building, thus providing better protection against sea surge and floods
  • Locating the electrical room on the first floor, well above the floodplain
  • Installing the emergency generator on the roof, with enough fuel on site in a secured location to support fire, life, and safety operations for up to four days
  • Placing the main entrance to the building on the facade opposite the water to prevent the greatest loss in case of a flood, and limiting entrances to two on the waterfront side, reinforced with special waterproofing to keep the interior dry
  • Protecting the at-grade and harbor-facing retail space against surges and flooding with an 18- inch curb wall and sandbags
  • Selecting planters, hardscape, exterior railings, and plants—generally hardy native ones accustomed to coastal sites—that are able to withstand immersion in salt water

“We incorporated these features into our design and budget from the beginning, so our sustainability and resiliency strategies cost a minimal amount, if anything, over the original building budget,” notes Molly Bordonaro, a partner at Gerding Edlen. “We asked our landscape architect to design the surrounding area with seawater-resistant vegetation and also plantings that were positive for possible runoff into the Boston Harbor. We also looked for unique plantings in large pots that could serve to protect the building against water during a storm surge. All this was done within the original landscape budget.”

“ We saved money by getting the building out of the storm surge’s way, so it’s a win-win.” —Patrick Wilde

Site soil from digging foundations for the new building was used to raise the grade, thereby saving trucking costs. “We saved money by getting the building out of the storm surge’s way, so it’s a win-win,” says Wilde. “We didn’t sit down and do payback analysis around a specific set of items,” he adds. “We looked at these as ‘the right way to build the building,’ having a building that ‘would stand the test of time,’ and ‘what makes the most sense.’”

Creating Value

Resilience strategies can save money on construction, insurance premiums, insurance deductibles, and by expediting the entitlement process so the building can be finished and leased sooner, says Bordonaro. Not having to build a basement to house the electrical room and emergency generator saved the project money; the required waterproofing, given the shallow depth of the water table, would have been difficult and costly to install.

Insurance premiums were lowered by reducing exposure to storm surge by locating power equipment above the 500-year-flood elevation and providing physical protection against floods, she says. Gerding Edlen’s insurance underwriter, Affiliated FM, estimated the resilience strategies could reduce the potential flood-loss expectancy from $10 million to $1 million, which equates to a significant premium drop. A building without the features that 6 New Street incorporated would pay annual premiums that were ten times higher for flood insurance. Thus, the resilient design is creating real savings for 6 New Street’s ongoing operating budget.

Another money-saving strategy was conducting a cladding study to ensure that exterior wall material could withstand winds of up to 100 miles per hour. In Boston, a developer can design to prescribed code values or engage a consultant to provide a wind analysis. For 6 New Street, a consultant provided a more precise analysis, specific to the site, which drove engineering values down and allowed the use of a lighter-gauge steel at lower construction costs. In light of its exposure, a building of this value could incur tens of millions of dollars in wind-loss damages for compromised window or roof systems that allowed storm water into interiors, thereby requiring significant downtime before the property could be lived in again. Gerding Edlen analyzed wind-loss expectancies on the basis of actual exposure and building design. The result was a potential wind-loss expectancy of only several million dollars, which meant an additional savings in insurance premiums for the building.

The developers are also betting that resilient design and construction will reduce the costs of repairing storm or sea-rise damages, as well as costs of annual maintenance. They estimate an annual energy cost savings of 24 percent, or nearly $150,000, especially from the cogeneration of heat and power. The building’s cogeneration turbine will be installed in a mechanical penthouse secured from storm surge threats, thus adding not just to the building’s energy efficiency, but also to its resiliency.

Bordonaro says 6 New Street’s resilience is attractive for branding and image. She says properties that Gerding Edlen has developed and sold in Boston and other cities have been sought after by institutional buyers because of their sustainability, lower operating and maintenance costs, and “build-to-last” resilience, which has translated into top-of-the-market sales pricing per unit. Sustainability and climate resilience measures (as well as location and design) also get credit for outperforming the market in increased rent per square foot, faster leasing, higher renewal rates, and improved occupancy. The developers expect 6 New Street to be open in December 2016. Preleasing premiums range from 2 percent to 18 percent higher per square foot for studios and two-bedroom apartments than comparable properties in the Boston market.

Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital

Partners HealthCare remained committed to the brownfield waterfront site it had found at the Charlestown Navy Yard, despite its vulnerability to similar risks of hurricanes, storm surges, and sea-level rise and the potential coastal flooding and power loss. But the harbor site and the events of Hurricane Katrina and other coastal storms caused the company to fundamentally shift its approach in designing and constructing the hospital to focus on sustainability and resilience. The shift has led to Partners working more consistently in all its healthcare facilities toward integrating sustainability with adaptation. “This is what the resilient hospital is about and [what] we should all be embracing,” says John Messervy, corporate director of design and construction for Partners HealthCare.

Completed in 2013, the eight-story, $225 million, LEED Gold–certified Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital is built on the remediated site. The hospital is exceptional not only for the care it provides—it is recognized as one of the nation’s top rehabilitation facilities for survivors of strokes and accidents, particularly those involving spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries—but also for its careful planning for resilience.

Located where the Little Mystic Channel meets Boston’s Inner Harbor, the 132-bed hospital’s greatest risks are wind and flooding from coastal storms. “[With the hospital] being on the waterfront, it is likely to be a nor’easter or a hurricane that will create the most difficulty in continuing to provide services,” says Messervy.

Lessons from Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, which hit the East Coast while the Boston hospital was being constructed, were critically important to Partners’ resilience planning. “We were committed to learning all we could, not only from Katrina, but from subsequent river floods in Louisville and other events around the country that had impacted hospitals,” says Messervy. Partners identified the ability to withstand extreme weather as a key business strategy that should be replicated at all Partners HealthCare facilities, especially in acute hospitals where patients continually rely on emergency services and access to treatment programs.

Partners created a library of documented evidence: data on Boston Harbor’s rising tide levels attributable to climate change and passing hurricanes, first-hand stories from Hurricane Katrina and other events, and information about the kinds of systems failures that had affected other hospitals’ abilities to provide services. Partners assembled a panel of experts to advise on building resilience and used data to guide design—with the intent of being able to inhabit the building through a Category 3 hurricane—with winds from 111 to 129 mph and storm surges of between nine and 12 feet above normal.

Mitigating Risks

Working with architects Perkins+Will, Partners took innovative steps to prepare for climate change and storms. The hospital was built with 90 percent of the resilience strategies Partners identified, including the following:

  • The first floor is 30 inches above the 500-year flood level to safeguard against projected sea-level rise over the life of the building.
  • All mechanicals—boilers, chillers, air handlers for ventilation—were installed on the roof or in a penthouse above the eight hospital floors to ensure operation during flooding.
  • High-voltage electrical service is run to a penthouse transformer and is encased in a concrete chase.
  • The primary diesel storage is in the basement, as per fire code, but it is housed in a floodproof vault with a 150,000-gallon tank. A pump delivers the fuel to the penthouse to power generators for at least four days, or longer if electrical loads are conserved.
  • High-efficiency mechanical systems, including a cogeneration system for heat and power that provides about 25 percent of the total power needed, reduce the building’s energy requirement to half that of comparable hospitals. These systems also help extend the supply of on-site power generation in case of outages.
  • A secondary combined chiller and HVAC system provides redundancy in case of outages, thereby allowing either system to keep the building warm in winter and cool in summer. An enhanced free-cooling (economizer) system provides most of the winter cooling load to save energy.
  • The building envelope is super-insulated with foam in the walls and triple-paned glass in patient rooms, thus avoiding the need for baseboard heating, which is typically required for Boston’s cold winters.
  • Operable windows in patient rooms and activity areas allow for natural ventilation during power outages.
  • Landforms such as swales and earth berms constructed of large granite blocks uncovered during the site excavation act as barrier reefs and deflect waves from hitting the building directly. An extensive drainage network allows floodwaters to dissipate quickly during flooding.
  • A two-level, 200-car underground parking garage is protected by a berm and a barrier system. Spaulding is designed to operate for at least four days in “island mode,” with diesel fuel for emergency generators, natural gas cogeneration capability, and ample stores of food and other supplies. The entire first floor of the building— including spaces for physical therapy and meetings, a swimming pool, and a cafeteria—could be flooded with only minor impact on operations, while the upper floors for patients remain fully occupied and operational.

Partners is conducting a resilience study of 30 of its clinical and research sites in Massachusetts for their exposure and ability to withstand extreme weather events. New buildings have communications, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems placed on higher floors, and older buildings are relocating them. “It is not an inexpensive proposition, and in many instances there is no payback, but we have to be able to provide medical service in the face of extreme events, and it is not acceptable for a facility to shut down,” says Messervy.

Creating Value

The premium for Spaulding’s resilience measures was about $1.5 million on construction costs of $160 million; half of that premium paid for encasing the high-voltage electrical riser through the building. The other $750,000 paid for building systems upgrades, such as high-efficiency pumps and chillers, for which Spaulding received partial reimbursement through utility company rebates.

Investments in the building envelope and more efficient energy systems have had a relatively rapid payback. The cost of the on-site cogeneration, for example, will be recouped within eight years. The hospital shaved about $400,000 off its first-year operating costs and anticipates consistently reducing costs by $500,000 per year through additional fine-tuning of the mechanical system and an LED lighting retrofit.

“The mayor uses Spaulding as a poster child for resilient building design in the city of Boston. It is receiving recognition at a number of different levels, most importantly directly with the patients, who benefit from the services there.” —John Messervy

Partners is one of the largest electricity consumers in the state, so the sustainability and resilience strategies that drive down day-to-day energy costs provide immediate return and also enable Partners’ hospitals to function longer in emergencies on their backup resources. Spaulding’s 250-kilowatt gas-fired combined heat and power plant provides power for the hospital and the local utility during peak periods and also heats the hospital’s water from the waste heat captured in the cogeneration process. Another sustainability/resilience strategy, the hospital’s green roof helps insulate the building and absorb stormwater runoff.

The highly energy-conserving building envelope, natural daylighting, gas-fired cogeneration system, and other features combine to keep the carbon emissions of the building far below those of most hospitals.

Resilience measures also are doing double duty to help heal patients, says Messervy: “Swales and berms will deflect waves from a direct hit on the building, and those landforms have become part of the therapy landscape that patients use during good weather to regain balance and mobility.”

These unique attributes are contributing to public recognition and driving demand for Spaulding’s services, which has resulted in a patient waiting list.