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100-PLUS YEARS YOUNG

How Savannah, Ga.’s old Whitaker Building learned a few new tricks about energy conservation

BY KAREN M. KROLL

Renovating a historic building is always a tricky proposition. Add to that a goal of bringing the building up to LEED standards, and the project becomes even more daunting. But none of this deterred local developer Melaver Family Properties, which turned the roughly 120-year-old Whitaker Building in downtown Savannah, Ga., into a restaurant-office complex.

The Whitaker Building sits in an original part of downtown Savannah. This roughly 10,000-square-foot facility was built in the late 19th century, after a fire destroyed the site’s previous structure. Its $12,000 construction price tag made the Whitaker Savannah’s most expensive building at the time.

The Whitaker’s exterior reflects an Italianate style. Its lines are simple and clean, with large first-floor openings and tall, arched windows. The exterior brick is taupe with a darker brown trim. But despite the building’s historic and architectural distinctiveness, it was sorely neglected.

Melaver began gutting the building in the winter of 2002, says Randy Peacock, Melaver’s project manager. “There was 70 years of trash in the building — between 160 and 200 tons,” he said, listing beds, mattresses, books, plaster bits and rotten joists.

Apparently, though, not even this was enough of a challenge for the developer. After attending a U.S. Green Building Council conference early last year on environmentally responsible construction, Colin Coyne, Melaver’s COO, decided to halt work on the Whitaker Building, register the property with USGBC and restart the process under LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines.

“Melaver has for years been interested in balancing the social benefit of its projects with a commitment to minimalizing the environmental impact,” said Coyne. The move was expensive and time consuming — it raised the final cost by 10 percent, he says — but Coyne maintains it will be well worth the trouble when the benefits of efficient energy consumption kick in. The renovation cost is about $1 million.

The LEED standards are a program of the USGBC. The Washington, D.C.-based USGBC is a coalition of 5,000-plus corporations, government agencies and nonprofit groups focused on advancing the construction of buildings that are relatively efficient in their consumption of natural resources. LEED-certified buildings meet stringent standards for, among other things, energy efficiency, water usage and indoor air quality.

Heaping up the guidelines
It’s not as though Melaver didn’t have enough on its plate already. To qualify for federal tax credits on the project, the firm had to conform to a whole different set of federal guidelines to ensure the preservation of the building’s integrity. Then there were the usual state and local design and safety codes. “We had many people looking over our shoulders,” said Neil Dawson, project architect and a principal of Savannah-based Dawson + Wissmach Architects.

The building’s 10,000 square feet are spread over two floors of about 4,000 square feet each, as well as a 2,000-square-foot basement level. The first floor comprises two restaurants, and offices take up the upper floor; the basement is unoccupied.

The structure was in worse shape than the company had anticipated, says Peacock. Ceilings and floors had to be repaired and, in places, replaced. The late decision to follow LEED guidelines didn’t help the timetable much either. It prompted a delay of several months as the developer revamped its construction plan and even redid some of the completed work. Though much of the HVAC system had already been installed, the building lacked a humidistat to control humidity and boost energy efficiency.

Other energy-saving features in the renewed Whitaker include motion-sensitive light sensors and dual-flush toilets that adjust the flow of water according to the severity of a bathroom visit. Melaver also painted the roof white to make for a cooler building.

As a result of these and other features, the Whitaker Building exceeds by about 15 percent the joint standard for energy use of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America. Buildings must meet that same standard to conform to LEED guidelines, says Taryn Holowka, a USGBC spokeswoman.

What makes this building unusual is that, to date, most projects given LEED certification have been new ones, Holowka says. “That this structure is from 1880 — that stands out,” she said, though she did not have a breakdown of new versus renovated LEED-certified facilities.

About 25 percent of LEED buildings are mixed-use facilities, Holowka says. Fewer than 1 percent of LEED-registered buildings are exclusively retail, although interest in LEED is growing among retailers, including Gap and Ikea, she says. As a result, the USGBC is developing a LEED template for the retail industry that should be completed in 2005.

To be sure, LEED compliance typically means extra work; the applicant must quantify and document the amount of energy and water required to operate the building, the quality of the indoor air and the use of recycled materials, among other factors.

The documentation can be cumbersome, especially on smaller projects. “The LEED process is somewhat unwieldy in terms of the paper you have to generate,” said Dawson. “On smaller projects, it can require a fairly extensive amount of a consultant’s time to document the process,” making things disproportionately expensive. As a result, LEED certification might make the most sense for projects of about 3 million square feet or more, he opines.

Not surprisingly, the simultaneous pursuit of energy efficiency and historic preservation can lead to conflicts. Dawson had to leave the building’s original windows intact, for instance, energy-efficiency issues notwithstanding. The solution was to cover them in a film to cut heat transmission. Melaver also had to cover the second-level ceilings’ pine beams with a one-hour-rated drywall, says Coyne.

On the other hand, the building’s historic status earned tax credits for about 20 percent of the renovation costs, says Peacock. In addition, the assessed value of the property used to compute local property tax bills is frozen for about seven years.

Furthermore, “the land has intrinsic value, and we can lease it at a better rate,” Coyne said. The second floor is fully leased, whereas most other second-floor offices in Savannah’s historic district are vacant. “We fell in love with the Whitaker Building the first time we saw it,” said Catherine Lattimore, an owner of The Lattimore Co., a real estate development firm that occupies about 1,300 square feet on the second floor. “It’s an outstanding renovation.”

And, of course, the energy-saving features make the building less expensive to operate, says Coyne, though it is too early to calculate by how much. In general, it takes about four to seven years to recoup the extra initial investment in the energy-saving materials and equipment used in a LEED building, says Coyne. For purchasers interested in a quick sale, that’s probably too long, he acknowledges, but buy-and-hold owners will see substantial savings over the life of a building.

The Whitaker Building should help lay to rest “the misnomer that environmentally friendly buildings have to be ugly and be places that only people who eat granola would go,” said Coyne.

At press time, the Whitaker Building’s application for LEED certification was in final review, and Melaver executives expected to receive certification by year-end. The Whitaker had also received an award for Excellence in Rehabilitation from The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.