Past Is Prologue

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To win LEED-EB certification, more than a dozen Mart managers met weekly, together with outside consultants from the Delta Institute, a not-for-profit green advisory group based in Chicago. The team worked through the phone-book sized self-evaluation that does more than ask questions; it also offers meticulous guidance to improve a building's performance. Eighteen months into the project, they had a fix-it plan, funded largely out of its operating and maintenance budgets.

Last fall the green council awarded the Mart silver LEED-EB certification, making it one of fewer than 80 facilities to earn the award so far. The return has been quick: Thanks to the upgrades, utility bills last year fell about 10%, and occupancy rates climbed to 96%, from 77% a decade ago. "We've had a wave of interest," says Christopher G. Kennedy, president of Merchandise Mart Properties and an heir to former building owner Joseph P. Kennedy. "One prospective tenant, who had passed us over, came back because they require a LEED space."

Bettin says that despite the award, the search for savings continues. But refits are becoming more costly and complex because a lot of the cheapest improvements have already been made. Next on his to-do list, for instance, is replacing a pair of one-speed electric motors, which pump water and drive parts of the cooling system, with variable-speed upgrades. That should shave $50,000 a year from the Mart's power bill. The project's estimated price tag: $350,000.

Douglas R. Gatlin, the council's vice-president for business development, sees another task: "Having the management discipline to execute, and selling tenants on the benefits of a process that can take years. The bigger the building," he says, "the harder that gets." Here's how the biggest of them all made it happen.

ENERGY

One of the Mart's best weapons against waste is a meter. Many commercial buildings rely on "master" meters, which track consumption of water, electricity, and other utilities for the entire structure. Landlords then apportion utility charges based on the space each tenant occupies. Thus, two offices of similar size may have the same bill even if one leaves the AC, lights, and computers running all night while the other shuts off everything. The Mart was ahead of the curve: It already had individual meters that billed tenants for their actual consumption. "You can't make them change to high-efficiency bulbs, but the minute we start passing on the true costs," notes Bettin, "the savings start."

Still, the Mart found it could use even more meters. It put in dozens to track lighting and cooling gear in common areas to pinpoint waste. A $16,000 sensor, for instance, helped identify numerous leaks in the cooling system that were causing air compressors to work overtime. Since maintenance workers sealed the leaks, the compressor uses about $4,000 less energy per year. The repairs also allowed the Mart to forego the purchase of a replacement compressor that would have cost many times more than the meter.

Old efficiency measures count, too, in how the council judges a building. For instance, the Mart's energy use was already benefitting from a 1980s ice-storage cooling system installed by its previous owners, the Kennedy family, who bought the building in 1945 and sold it to Vornado Realty Trust in 1998. The system freezes tons of water overnight, even in winter months when the Mart's cooling needs are minimal. The ice is then brought up to 34 degrees and pumped into the air conditioning system during the day. The setup shifts power consumption to lower-price, off-peak periods.

WATER

As detailed as the green council's rules are, they can't foresee everything. A by-the-book approach to cutting water usage would have guided the Mart to replace every old-fashioned, water-guzzling toilet and faucet. But in a building with an estimated 2,000 toilets, the cost and wasted materials from such an all-out effort would have been mountainous—and contrary to the spirit of LEED-EB.

To come up with the savings they needed, the Mart's green team treated the water challenge as traffic planners would. They tallied the water usage in every washroom fixture to produce a 24-page spreadsheet that documents where practically every drop in the building flowed. Because of all the trade shows the Mart hosts, only a small number of restrooms turned out to account for a huge share of water. All of these had been improved earlier. This helped make clear that upgrading low-traffic, less-efficient toilets and sinks elsewhere in the building wouldn't be worthwhile.