Houston's first city tower earns LEED^® GOLD Status

Waste Management helps FCT become first existing building in Texas to achieve major "green" rating
May 19, 2009
Houston, TX

First City Tower, located at 1001 Fannin Street in Houston's Central Business District (CBD), has been awarded LEED^® Gold certification for an Existing Building from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The building, which is managed by CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) and owned by FC Tower Property Partners L.P., becomes the first office tower in the Lone Star State to receive this designation. LEED^®, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a third-party rating system developed by the USGBC to measure the environmental impact of the building's design, construction and operations.

First City Tower attained the desired number of points to earn LEED^® Gold for Existing Buildings by utilizing the resources developed and provided by the CBRE Green Knight program. Dave Johnson, an Associate Director at CBRE and General Manager at First City Tower also recently received the LEED^® Professional Accreditation. Mr. Johnson, colleagues Jeff Greensage , Donna Will and Chief Building Engineer Ray Bailey, applied the shared knowledge of the Green Knight program to transform the building to a sustainable facility operation. Support from the building's owner and the cooperation of the building's vendors also played an important role in the transformation.

"Working through the Green Knight program put us in touch with valuable "green" experienced professionals who were able to advise us on many of the challenges that we faced during the LEED^® accreditation," said Johnson. "The process can be quite complicated due to all the specific requirements, and having access to a group with a working knowledge of sustainable practices helped us achieve our goal."

One of the building's primary tenants, Waste Management (WM), also played a key role in the LEED^® process by doing recycling for the facility using the single stream method, where all recycables are put in a single bin, making it more convenient for tenants and thus increasing volumes of recyclables. WM also supported the facility with recycling programs for light bulbs (LampTracker^®) and electronic waste (e-cycling). WM provided First City Tower with the use of a solar-powered trash compactor, and an initial waste stream audit and waste tracking procedures through its Green Squad consulting arm.

Rising 49-stories with over 1-million square feet of space, First City Tower is a Class A office building that occupies a full city block bounded by Fannin, McKinney, San Jacinto and Lamar Streets in Houston's CBD. The building was completed in 1981 and in 2005 underwent a $15-million renovation that included upgrades to the lobby, elevators, tunnels and the street level plaza areas. In 2007 the building won the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International The Office Building of the Year (TOBY) Award in the Renovated Building category and is an ENERGY STAR qualified building.

Greener by Design 2009

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May 19-20, 2009
San Francisco, CA

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