Willis Tower: the new high-profile, flashy renovation

Tuesday

Nov032009

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 10:08AM

Chicago's tallest building, the Willis Tower (formerly known as Sears Tower) is getting an energy efficiency facelift. We heartily applaud this endeavor as it highlights a lot of the problems that most buildings built in the same era face. Single pane windows that leak air, excessive heat gain on the sunny side of the building leading to air conditioning while the side in shadow is being heated, etc. It is exciting to see such a high profile renovation identifying these common problems and highlighting the need to change them.

But yet again, as a giant building whose owners have deep pockets, there arrives a point where smaller buildings whose owners' pockets may not be so deep will disconnect. It's hard for them to apply the monetary numbers for the renovation to their scale. Even the Chicago Tribune acknowledges, "In design plans, the "green roof" project would be expanded to the building's multiple roofs, along with wind turbines and solar panels. But those rooftops would be more symbolic than anything else. The real energy savings will be culled from the 16,000 windows that will be replaced and from lighting automation and reduction." So when they go on to talk about how the cost would be recouped in 26 years, I can't help but think of the yellow graph posted in our last blog entry about life cycle costs, and wonder how much shorter that time would be without the "symbolic" additions. I am not saying that a building with the prestige and resources like the Willis Tower has shouldn't invest in technology like wind turbines and solar. They should. What I am saying is that these highly publicized, high budget projects are the ones that get the most media attention leading owners of small buildings to assume the cost for any sustainable renovation is prohibitive to them and their own space. And this is the void that Build2Sustain is stepping into. We want to create practical ROI models and publicize them so everyday tenants and owners have a resource for the different options and scales at their disposal, giving real life examples of how these investments can improve their space.

Raquel |

7 Comments |

Reader Comments (7)

Very interesting post - the media splash aside, I agree that a 26 year ROI is going to be a very difficult to impossible sell under most economic analysis.

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