Taking aim on greenhouse gases: 57 Denver buildings enrolled in city program to cut energy use.

• Author: Best, Allen
• Position: ENERGY REPORT

1515 WYNKOOP, the eight-story building in Denver's LoDo district, has obvious attractions. Home to everything from law to insurance to oil-and-gas firms, the 306,791-square-foot building is just a block from Union Station's convergence of light rail and buses and is within walking distance of intriguing retail and restaurants.

But another benefit to the 14 tenants is the attention devoted to energy use by Hines management company and building owner American Realty Advisors. Guided by the mantra that you can't manage what you don't measure, Hines first benchmarked energy use here at 1515 Wynkoop.

That standardized scale allowed the Hines team to detect a recent anomaly. By engaging in consistent building inspections, the staff caught a lighting control glitch that left lights on overnight that should not have been. The malfunction cost tenants, who were paying the utility bills, extra money. "This shows you can't always rely on the automation system and that the human element is equally important," said Liz Taylor, director of property management for Hines.

Saving energy is good for the environment, but the bottom line for Hines is saving money for tenants. It's unlikely that it's the first consideration, maybe not even second. But who doesn't like to save money?

"It makes us more competitive in the marketplace," Taylor says. "This affects operating expenses."

SETTING AN EXAMPLE

The 1515 Wynkoop facility is one of 57 buildings enrolled in a program launched in October called the Denver City Energy Project. The program is motivated in part by improved economic performance, as the city announced that it would "unlock" $1.3 billion in energy savings, reduce energy use in commercial and multifamily buildings by 18 percent and enable the creation of 4,000 jobs through the improvements generated by benchmarking.

But the city government also sees this as a way of ratcheting down the city's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Denver hopes to achieve a 20 percent reduction by 2020.

Unlike other environmental programs, Denver City Energy Project targets energy use by larger commercial and multifamily buildings of more than 10,000 square feet. The enrollees include several King Soopers, George Washington High School, more than 7 million square feet in city-owned buildings and some of the city's soaring skyscrapers.

Katrina Manigan, senior adviser in the Denver City Energy Project, says improved energy efficiency in buildings in general, and large...