JTJ Investments, a Providence real estate redevelopment firm, recently opened 28 Wolcott, a sustainable mixed-use building in the city’s Promenade district. President John Tabor Jacobson took a few minutes recently to talk with Providence Business News about that project and about why he thinks Rhode Island should be in a national leader in sustainable development.
PBN: The phrase “net zero” has been used to describe your Wolcott Street project in Providence. Can you explain what that term means?
JACOBSON: A net-zero energy building is capable of producing, at minimum, an annual output of renewable energy that is equal to the total amount of its annual consumed/purchased energy from energy utilities. In other words, my building generates all of its own energy needs from its own renewable sources; it is a completely self-sustaining building. Net-zero performance has become the goal of many architectural and government initiatives in order to reduce carbon emissions. It is important to note that buildings are the number-one contributor to climate change and account for 48 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. Transportation accounts for only 13 percent. There are many ways to achieve this goal. In the case of the office at 28 Wolcott, a super-insulated building envelope engineered with solar-thermal and photovoltaic-panels heat, cool and power the building.
PBN: That project uses many new technologies and materials. Could you tell me about finding those materials?
JACOBSON: When designing a sustainable building, every material chosen is closely considered. All of the supplies, technologies and personnel needed were sourced locally and some were even developed in Rhode Island. I worked closely with the contractor, Dave Stem, in sourcing materials close to the job site and using local subcontractors. Not only is this good for the environment, I think that it makes good business sense. I am not a big fan of e-mail and cell phones. I like to sit down in an office and communicate face-to-face and I don’t want to drive to another state to do that. One day while driving on Interstate 95, I decided to go to the Viessmann’s North American headquarters in Warwick. I toured their showroom and got quite an education on state-of-the-art energy and heating systems. By the end of the week, I had assembled a team from SolarWrights (now known as Alteris), Advanced Comfort Systems and Viessmann at the job site and we designed the solar hot water and electrical systems in a highly collaborative design process.
Rhode Island’s small size, location and large talent pool make it great place to source materials and contractors for “green” building.
PBN: You have redeveloped – or are in the process of redeveloping – a few buildings in Providence. How has this year’s slowdown in the small-to-mid-sized commercial space market affected your business?
JACOBSON: The current economic climate has dramatically affected the real estate market – not just for our company, but globally – to the point where things are almost at a standstill. But this will not last forever and will present latent opportunities for those with cash or available financing in the near future. The days of speculative financing and building are over and probably for the betterment of the U.S. economy.
To that aim, my focus is looking for people and businesses that want to be in sustainable buildings and working with them and their budgets to provide a solution. These days, banks want to see a lease or a purchase-and-sales agreement before they lend. Fortunately, existing building prices have come down to the point where it is possible to do the substantial improvements that greener buildings require. This puts Rhode Island in a unique position because we have a large existing building stock and the potential to reuse it and create buildings that are much cheaper than new construction. This could position Rhode Island as a national leader in green building, but there are some major issues that need to be addressed by government officials and advocacy groups like The Rhode Island Historical Society before this can happen.
PBN: The Wolcott project was completed without tax credits. Would you be in favor of a state tax credit for green or sustainable developments? How can Rhode Island be seen as a national leader in the green building movement without such credits?
JACOBSON: Surprisingly, no, I would not be in favor of state tax credits. What the most successful states and cities are doing to encourage green development is giving incentives – offering more density and less parking – and more importantly, expediting the permitting process. Rhode Island developers need to get out of the habit of thinking that to make their numbers work that they need a government handout and Rhode Island legislators need to get creative and consider ways that they can help developers make more of a profit without spending taxpayer money. Sustainable business practices are necessary for the long-term success of sustainable development.
In 2006, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ranked Providence as the most complicated and highly regulated area in the country, and, most importantly, the study found that having a highly regulated and complicated system adds approximately 15 percent to 20 percent to the cost of a development. I have found this to be true. If developers had a way of circumnavigating a dysfunctional system by creating expedited permitting for green development held to a set of standards like the U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system, most everyone would participate. Because the added cost for LEED is usually between 5 percent and 10 percent, this could lead to a situation where green development was actually cheaper than normal development. This would be relatively inexpensive to do but we need government leadership in this area.
Rhode Island also needs to educate the people of our state on the importance of green building and energy efficiency. A white paper produced by the Building Design + Construction Network in 2005 found that only 4 percent of the population realized that buildings contributed to carbon emissions. Creating healthy, energy efficient buildings should be on everyone’s mind and a green-building resource center like Nexus in Boston would be an excellent education tool for Rhode Islanders. This would go a long way to creating a green jobs market from buildings operation and management to construction jobs to interior designers to engineers.
Of course the price of fossil fuels is going to drive a lot of this. Unfortunately, unless people feel it in the pocketbook, there will be modest change. But keep in mind, the best time to change, and the least costly, is before we are forced to.
Finally, Rhode Island needs to market itself as a green innovator and leader to attract businesses. For instance, Rhode ranks No. 2 for having the lowest carbon footprint per person in the country. While we should be proud and celebrate this, we need to continue to clean the devastating legacy that the industrial revolution left in our state by supporting and initiating more programs like Save the Bay.
PBN: What trends do you seen on the horizon for green development?
JACOBSON: In the near future, legislation and funding from the federal and state government are going to play a huge role in driving our economy and this especially includes green development. A lot of this legislation is being written right now and anticipating how it is going to affect the market will be important. It is not going to be easy transforming the buildings of America into lean, mean, energy-efficient machines, but if we should decide to do it, a lot of jobs will be created and whole new categories of employment will emerge. Building science and engineers are going to become very important.
A new business model called ESCOS is emerging which is very exciting; an “energy service company” is a professional business providing a broad range of comprehensive energy solutions including designs and implementation of energy savings projects, energy conservation, energy infrastructure outsourcing, power generation and energy supply and risk management. ESCO performs an in-depth analysis of the property, designs an energy efficient solution, installs the required elements and maintains the system to ensure energy savings during the payback period. The savings in energy cost is often used to pay back the capital investment of the project over a five-to-20-year period, or is reinvested into the building to allow for capital upgrades that may otherwise be unfeasible. If the project does not provide returns on the investment, the ESCO is often responsible to pay the difference.
In addition, amazing new technologies will push the envelope of what is possible. Rhode Island companies like Aspen Aerogels with its new 146,000-square-feet factory in East Providence, Taco, Ledalux (a division of Mule Lighting), Alteris Renewables and Branch River Plastics, are all at the forefront of green technology. With national support – like we saw for the Manhattan Project or the space race – America could lead the world in creating a cleaner, better tomorrow; and hopefully Rhode Island will lead all 50 states in that pursuit. With hard work, change and cooperation, we can. It is always darkest before the light, and how bright that light shines on Rhode Island will be determined by our actions right now.
