Living City Block aims to help LoDo buildings reduce energy consumption.

• Author: Cote, Mike
• Position: SUSTAINABILITY

The biggest stumbling block to making existing structures more sustainable is to justify the upfront expense. Sure, making an office more energy efficient will save money in the long run, but when budgets are tight, such efforts get put on the back burner.

Living City Block aims to change that dynamic by helping building owners band together to secure funding for sustainability initiatives, including renewable energy and water and wastewater management. The not-for-profit--spun out of the Rocky Mountain Institute last year--is working on a two-block project in historic lower downtown between 15th and 16th streets and Wynkoop and Blake streets. It's working on similar projects in Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, N.Y.

The goal is to "create an aggregation of building owners so that they can together accomplish more than they could ever accomplish own their own," said Llewellyn Wells, president and founder of Living City Block.

The Denver project--which aims to reduce its aggregate energy use by 50 percent by 2012--includes the Tattered Cover book store; Dixon's and Gumbo's restaurants; and the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado's Alliance Center, where Living City Block is headquartered. The Alliance aims to make its building the first net-zero historical retrofit in the nation. The plan calls for a net-zero block by 2014 and for the project to create more energy than it uses by 2016.

The effort has earned corporate support from AT&T Colorado; the law firms of Moye White and Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber & Schreck; and architectural firm RNL. Living City Block also has secured partnerships with the city and county of Denver, the Governor's Energy Office, the University of Colorado at Denver and other local and national organizations.

Carolynne White, who leads the green building practice for Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber & Schreck, said the firm is tapping attorneys from various fields to provide pro-bono help with such issues as taxes, real estate, corporate law, land use, zoning and green building.

"We've been thinking about this for a long time because we have a lot of clients who are owners of commercial office buildings in that mid-range," said White, a shareholder with the Denver-based firm. "There's a lot of expertise and information out there--about how to retrofit, what types of tax credits...