According to The Landis Group, a leading real estate development and management firm, 400 Atlantic St., the company's class A office tower, has assembled an in-house "green team" to incorporate numerous sustainable initiatives in addition to cost-cutting and energy savings strategies such as changes in electrical usage, fuel/gas consumption and hardscape management.
"Establishing sustainability initiatives is not only the right thing to do to protect our environment, but it's also good business practice," said Scott Landis, principal at The Landis Group. "The goal at 400 Atlantic St. is to create a state-of-the-art business environment that integrates the principles of environmental responsibility and sustainability to the benefit of existing and future tenants."
The Landis Group launched the program to enhance the property's overall energy-efficiency in an effort to attain Energy Star certification and pursue Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Existing Buildings Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for the building.
As the project at 400 Atlantic began, energy savings and electrical usage emerged as the most important cost-cutting and environmentally friendly target. In a recent engineering report it was estimated that the site would save $150,000 annually in energy costs due to key upgrades in the building's common areas. The team evaluated all of the building's systems and began to make changes.
Initiatives included:
* Updating the parking structure lighting systems and installing new digital time clocks that adjust the lighting to run a minimal amount of lights during working hours and eliminate them on the weekends and off hours.
* Installation of electric car charging stations and reserved parking for hybrid vehicles in the parking structure.
* Replacing light bulbs in the building to realize estimated annual savings of $87,000 per year and installing occupancy sensors in all offices and conference rooms that are outfitted with a switch.
* Replacing an inefficient air compressor and equipping the new one with a time clock that ensures when the central plant goes down for the day, the main air compressors shut down as well.
* Cutting fuel consumption by installing time clocks on both boiler units and cutting operations back to thirty hours.
* Reworking the storm water irrigation system to intercept and redirect storm water from the third floor plaza to fill the 5,000-gallon storage unit. Using this water, management was able to irrigate the lower plaza without the use of potable water. This will not only cut down on the water usage and bill at 400 Atlantic St., but it prevents additional run off from contaminating the ground water supply and contaminants from entering the nearby Long Island sound.
400 Atlantic St. is a 15-story, 500,000 s/f class A office building that was originally conceived and constructed as Champion Paper's world headquarters. The building is highlighted by a dramatic lobby entrance and public spaces, 37,000 s/f flexible floor plates, elegant interior staircases and views of Long Island Sound.
The building is home to such high-quality corporations as UBS, American Express, The Santander Group and Harman Kardon. Currently, there is 40,000 s/f of premier space available with the ability to expand. The CBRE team of David Block and Steven Greenbush is the exclusive leasing agent for the building.
"With the launch of the green project at 400 Atlantic, we have taken a hard look at total operations and maintenance and said, 'we can do more,'" said Landis. "Today we are operating the building smarter not only for our tenants, but for the entire community and we will continue to push harder in the future."
400 Atlantic is located just 35 minutes from Manhattan and is across the street from the Stamford Metro-North Rail Station and adjacent to Interstate 95. Each of the building's light flooded floors presents an opportunity for eight spacious corner offices, while the center core construction allows for the most efficient space planning. Tenants also benefit from the presence of numerous on-site amenities, including an indoor connected garage, in-building fitness center, and full-service lobby cafeteria.
About The Landis Group
The Landis Group has developed, owned or operated in excess of 20 million s/f of class A real estate across the Northeast since its founding in 1967. The firm developed the landmark Carnegie Center, a 560 acre mixed-used development which includes 5.5 million s/f of office space, 1,100 residential units, 500 hotel rooms as well as the 370,000 s/f Princeton Market Fair Mall. Tags: