In his experience, portfolio optimization is all about matching business requirements (demand with supply) and addressing the time value of money in a targeted market area.  To do this effectively, you need to focus on three things:  The Data, Process Engagement and Design Thinking.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s the third piece - Design Thinking – that makes the other two sing. 

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Data Matters:  you can’t conduct solid portfolio analysis or prepared cost benefit studies without accurate data. What are the short, mid and long term requirements of your business? How much are you spending on the space you occupy? How well are you utilizing the space under your control?  You will need accurate and current data in order to address these and the multitude of other issues that should be considered when developing strategic plans to optimize your portfolio.

2. Process Engagement is Key:  a strategic planning process that targets business drivers and determines business unit requirements is key to addressing portfolio planning.  The ability for planners and real estate providers to apply this process across the company’s internal customers – business units and their staff, will result in comprehensive portfolio planning with embedded flexibility when the inevitable market or business conditions change!

3. Design Thinking Will Take You where Your Company Needs to Go:  data, spreadsheets and planning tools and processes are secondary to the wisdom and applied learning of a seasoned real estate planner or strategist.  Simple analysis would not always lead you to the most creative solution – example, repurpose an aged manufacturing plant that you might otherwise sell for low cost and over a long period of disposition.  A fresh look at business realignment and colocation synergies of business units does not emerge from simple number crunching, but rather from a creative view of the synergies achieved through colocation and cross selling opportunities that allow workflow and work process adjacencies to be fully considered.

NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association “Award Of Excellence” in the “Best Building – Adaptive Reuse” category

Before and after the renovation

220 20th Street is a new 20-story landmark apartment tower that plays a key role in the repositioning of Arlington County’s Crystal City neighborhood.

This project involved the partial demolition and adaptive re-use of a vacant 1970s office building that no longer met the criteria for “Class A space” due to its construction type, small floor plates and low floor-to-floor heights. None of these factors represented a problem for a residential building, however, and the lower residential floor loads allowed for the addition of six new floors and a rooftop pool deck to the existing structure. Most apartments feature inset balconies and media rooms that make good use of the deeper-than-average floor plates.

The original pre-cast concrete and brown-tinted glass facade was removed and replaced with a lighter, all-glass facade designed to establish a new architectural standard for Crystal City and live up to the promise of its name. Unlike most residential apartment buildings in this market, each unit has full-width floor-to-ceiling glass in all perimeter areas to maximize daylight and views. The articulated, high-performance glass curtainwall  provide solar shading, improve energy efficiency and limit sound transmission from the nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport. The upper floors of the building feature larger penthouse units and rooftop amenities, including a fitness center, swimming pool, viewing terrace and outdoor kitchen. Residents can enjoy stunning views of the Potomac River, the National Mall, the Washington, DC, skyline and beyond.

The building capitalizes on a unique opportunity to re-orient the Crystal City streetscape toward a traditionally urban, pedestrian-friendly environment with animated storefronts and high-quality landscaping and street furniture. Although the building is still connected to the Metro system and the Underground Mall below grade, it has street-front retail and a new two-story entry lobby at street level with a sweeping curved staircase leading to the club room and Internet cafe.

The smoke-free building will be LEED certified. It includes interior materials and energy-saving fixtures and appliances that allow tenants to choose a more sustainable urban lifestyle. The project takes advantage of Arlington County’s groundbreaking green development programs, which offer developers additional height and density in exchange for providing affordable housing and environmentally sustainable design features in the new construction.

How can you help organizations renew their existing buildings?

JP: We have a enormous opportunity to provide engineering services in the existing building market. So many commercial and institutional buildings are 30 to 50 years old, which is the typical life span of a mechanical-electrical system. All these building systems are coming to the end of their useful lives and will soon need to be replaced.

At the same time, clients are placing an increased emphasis on sustainability and are taking important steps to reduce energy consumption and to be more environmentally responsible.

Building owners that experience the failure of an HVAC system, for example, should not simply do a ‘like for like’ replacement. Before they replace the building system, we should take a fully integrated approach that looks at the building envelope and other building components to first reduce the building load and allow us to update it with a more high-performance system.

We can do things like change out glazing or other skin components, improve insulation, increase daylighting and reduce the lighting demand. Taking advantage of these improvements might reduce the HVAC system’s required capacity by 40 to 60 percent, which would enable a building owner to buy a smaller system. Though the initial overall project cost may be slightly higher, the life cycle cost will be much lower due to reduced annual energy and operating costs. The business case for this approach can be incredibly strong.

How do HOK’s engineers provide an integrated approach?

JP: HOK’s engineers work with our architects to provide a fully integrated building systems approach. Combining our engineers, architects, Advance Strategies consultants and sustainability experts under one HOK umbrella gives us a powerful array of tools that we use to help clients.

We are increasingly getting our engineers involved upfront in projects to create strategies for sustainable, high-performance engineering systems and to do energy analysis and building simulation models. That approach provides our designers and clients informed options to consider. After all of the options and strategies are analyzed, we can then design the MEP building systems to be optimized specifically for the project.

Too often in our profession, one team passes the baton to another and something is lost in translation. Being there from start to finish, and even beyond in post-occupancy, allows HOK to integrate the MEP engineering systems into the architecture. With our seamless process we can create well-designed, high-performance building improvements renewing the building for its next life cycle.

What is the impact on energy efficiency of a building’s operations?

JP: We can design the most efficient system in the world, but if it isn’t operated properly it won’t produce the desired energy efficiency result.

We want to involve the building operations staff and users upfront in the design process in order for us to understand their project expectations and for them to have “buy-in” and understand the design. After the project is delivered and occupied, we can then provide post occupancy services such as occupant environment assessment, system measurement and verification, and commissioning. Having that performance data creates an important feedback loop that we can use to enhance our simulation, modeling and design process for the next project.

Transforming a 1919 Army terminal into a high-tech center for bioscience.

HOK is designing the New York Science and Technology Center, also known as BioBAT, in a portion of the 4-million-square-foot Brooklyn Army Terminal. Our design is helping to transform the former waterfront supply warehouse into a thriving center for commercial bioscience. The center will include multi-tenant life science research, development and manufacturing space.

Completed in 1919, the Brooklyn Army Terminal served as the country’s largest military supply base through World War II. The Cass Gilbert-designed facility sits on Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront and is owned by the City of New York and leased by  the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Today, it houses dozens of commercial and industrial tenants, with significant room for expansion.

BioBAT, Inc. is a non-profit partnership between the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center through the SUNY Research Foundation.

The goal of this project is to retain early-stage bioscience companies associated with NYC’s nine top academic medical and research institutions while also capturing companies from other states looking to relocate or establish new facilities in New York City. By making state-of-the-art, energy efficient commercial lab and support spaces available, BioBAT provides incentives for these companies to develop their innovations and create local jobs.

“This cutting-edge, high-tech, research and bio-manufacturing facility, one of the largest on the East Coast, will put us in the position to create jobs now and compete for the jobs of tomorrow,” said State Senator Martin Golden. “The time, the energy and the thought that has gone into creating this biotech park has the potential to make Brooklyn the Silicon Valley of the biotech industry.”

Through the development of this transformative project, the City of New York and SUNY Downstate will author a new chapter in the history of bioscience by providing nearly 500,000 square feet of space to support industry-leading science tenants. With the innovative re-purposing of a historic waterfront building in Brooklyn, the partnership that established BioBAT is creating an exemplary environment for science and a valuable asset for New York City.

The project will be developed on an incremental basis to optimally respond to the diverse needs of BioBAT’s tenants, which will range from early-phase startup companies through larger, more mature companies. Construction on the first 85,000 square feet at BioBAT is expected to be complete in late 2011. The facility can accommodate tenant space needs ranging from 5,000 square feet to full floors at 56,000 square feet each.  

Converting a brownfield site into a 21^st century, LEED-certified campus.

HOK has created a conceptual design for the Carbon Campus at One Carbon Motors Drive in Connersville, Indiana. The plans call for a state-of-the-art conversion of a circa-1954 inefficient and mothballed brownfield site into a 21st-century LEED-certified facility. The new facility will house Carbon Motors’ corporate headquarters, research and development, production, service training, sales activities, and vehicle recycling on the same campus.

The existing structures that make up the Carbon Campus were built when an abundance of low-cost energy was available and thermally efficient building materials were not in common use. Carbon Motors wants to minimize the consumption of energy required for its operations at this redeveloped campus in an environmentally and economically responsible way.

Core values considered during the redevelopment included energy efficiency, sustainability, reusability and environmental responsibility. HOK and Carbon Motors measured the existing building structure against these values and developed a comprehensive plan to optimize it to meet both the company’s space requirements and the U.S. Department of Energy’s loan eligibility requirements under the provisions of Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Updates will exceed the national energy use guidelines.

The design provides a dramatic exterior appearance, a highly efficient interior work environment and natural and restored green areas that will enhance the community. Extensive use of translucent materials will help provide natural lighting throughout the campus, reducing the need for artificial lighting while providing a more inviting work environment.

The company estimates that the new campus will reduce overall site operating and maintenance costs by 60%–90%.

LEED-EB consulting for a 1995 office tower in Toronto.

HOK helped Cadillac Fairview’s Simcoe Place qualify for LEED®-EB certification. As prime consultant, HOK managed the complete process for the 33-story tower, which was completed in 1995. We documented and reviewed the existing building conditions and then developed a plan for obtaining the credits required for LEED-EB certification.

Site
As a result of being in the downtown core, which is well-serviced by various means of public transportation and building programs that support biking and car share programs, the building was able to achieve all LEED-EB points for this credit. It earned an “exemplary performance” in the innovation for transportation category.

Water Efficiency
Based on HOK’s recommendations, Simcoe Place incorporated high efficiency plumbing fixtures to reduce the overall water use for the building and wastewater generated by the building. The team completed a building analysis of the water consumption and available conservation methods. Existing water closets, urinals and faucets were retrofitted with high efficiency valves and aerators.

Energy + Atmosphere
Water, electricity and gas use, together with the method of transportation for tenants, determines the total amount of emissions produced. As many buildings do not report green house gas (GHG) emissions, this is a first step in analyzing possible opportunities. With HOK’s help, Simcoe Place was able to successfully report its total emissions and now has a goal for significant reduction by 2012.

Materials + Resources
HOK advised on a purchasing policy that introduces environmentally conscious purchasing into building practices. We helped with a waste audit that enabled the building managers to better understand the amount of waste generated and the environmental impacts. The audit enabled HOK to develop key areas of education for Simcoe Place’s waste management team.

Indoor Environmental Quality
With HOK’s assistance, Simcoe Place developed and implemented a Green Cleaning Policy to reduce the harmful chemicals and contaminants in the building that can affect the air quality and health for all building occupants.

In conjunction with the Green Cleaning Policy, a High-Performance Cleaning Program has been implemented. This program contains staffing plans and standard operational and storage procedures for effective building cleaning and maintenance. Simcoe Place was able to achieve a credit for its thorough program.

Innovation in Operations
All four Innovation in Operations credits were achieved at Simcoe Place. All credits were “exemplary performance,” as they had gone above and beyond the requirements outlined in the LEED reference guide.

Photo credit: Wikipedia author SimonP

Workplace Design Guidelines for more than 13 million square feet across Sprint’s portfolio. 

HOK helped the Sprint Enterprise Real Estate team develop a company-wide workplace program, document the planning process in guidelines and implement projects across their portfolio. Referred to as the Sprint Workplace Design Guidelines, the company-wide workplace program includes strategies about the physical aspects of the workplace (Sprint Mobile Zone) and the change management activities required (Sprint Mobile Workforce).

The Sprint Workplace Design Guidelines eventually will impact all Sprint associates and workplaces across more than 13 million square feet. In addition to increasing mobility by enabling flexible work schedules and providing enhanced technology, the Workplace Design Guidelines will help Sprint better utilize its existing facilities and support “growth without growth.” This ability to grow without taking more space is good for its bottom line and for the environment.

Concurrent to the development of the Design Guidelines, HOK designed a 51,000-square-foot pilot project for Sprint’s Enterprise Real Estate group. The team’s goals included adding more collaborative space, optimizing space efficiency, creating flexible workspace to facilitate a mobile work environment and achieving LEED-CI certification.

Building on the lessons learned from the pilot project, HOK has continued to implement design standards in multiple projects in Reston, Va., and Washington, DC.

In this new climate, we’re helping forward-thinking organizations approach goals for asset reuse and optimization, energy efficiency, and resource conservation as business imperatives.

HOK RENEW is a lens for viewing our overarching approach to meeting our clients’ needs for renewal. Here you’ll find highlights of HOK’s special expertise and experience providing integrated architectural, engineering, interior design, planning, and sustainability consulting solutions for existing environments worldwide.

HOK is helping clients revitalize everything from individual workplaces to buildings, sites, and global real estate portfolios. We’re excited about the opportunity to help our clients improve their business results while moving the world toward a low-carbon economy and enhancing the quality of people’s lives.

Learn more about how we renew existing environments.

Transforming an important, historic building into a showcase of sustainability and energy efficiency.

 

HOK is the design architect on the design-build team for the  modernization of the Byron G. Rogers Federal Office Building for the U.S. General Services Administration.

The 494,156-square-foot Byron G. Rogers Federal Office Building is home to 11 federal agencies in downtown Denver. The project includes complete design and construction for upgrades to the structural elements and all major building systems. The building upgrades should reduce energy use by more than 80 percent over current levels and attain LEED Platinum certification.

Building upgrades will include the replacement of the mechanical, electrical, lighting, fire protection, and plumbing systems, as well as replacement of all exterior windows and complete renovation of all tenant spaces and most public spaces. Additionally, super-efficient LED lighting, high-performance building/lighting controls, and thermal storage tanks to preserve building energy will be installed. Additional sustainable features include: 

• Solar thermal collectors on the roof are planned to provide all of the building’s domestic hot water.
• Reduction of 15 percent in elevator transportation energy by utilizing regenerative drive technology.

The office tower will also be upgraded to comply with current building codes, GSA facility requirements, and current seismic and progressive collapse criteria. 

Renovated in 2005, the adjacent 248,000-square-foot U.S. Courthouse will have its windows replaced with more energy-efficient products.

The total project budget is $129,569,364 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, with $4.85 million in ARRA funds allocated for the Byron G. Rogers U.S. Courthouse energy efficiency window upgrades.

This high performance green building project will continue GSA’s legacy of outstanding public architecture by providing a balance between historic significance and current needs and aesthetics. Work on the Byron G. Rogers government complex will result in:

• The implementation of innovations in sustainable building design.
• Creation of superior workplaces for civilian Federal employees.
• Provisions for increased security and safety for tenants and visitors.
• Cost effective and reliable construction based on “best value” decisions. 

Mortenson Construction is serving as the design builder and Bennett Wagner & Grody Architects is the architect of record. Construction should be complete in June 2013.

Read more information about the project.

Repositioning the 25-year-old former Bombay Co. Headquarters Building in Fort Worth’s Cultural District.

Goff Capital Partners sought to reposition a seven-story, 122,000 square-foot building from Class B to Class A in order to attract new tenants and increase occupancy. HOK’s design helped renew the building’s site, lobby and public spaces.

The existing single-level, dark, north-facing entry lobby had poor visibility and lacked a sense of arrival. The design solution demolished a portion of the second floor to provide for a double-height lobby space and to capture existing exterior space into the new lobby. This change enabled the lobby to extend beyond the existing building face with a new three-story glass façade and metal canopy, creating better visibility from the street.