New BOMA Standard: What Size Is Your Office Building Really?
Need more proof that the way millennials work is impacting office real estate? Read the full report here.
Tag: sustainability
The Sustainable Office: A peek into the modern changing office
We were very happy to attend the Princeton Chamber of Commerce’s “The New Way of Work” event put together by the Real Estate Business Alliance yesterday morning.
The panel discussion, along with breakfast & networking, was held at the Springdale Golf Club in downtown Princeton.
Featured speakers included Brian Marrs (Manager, Policy & Strategic Sustainability) & Bill Walsh (Director of Corporate Facilities) at NRG Energy and our friend Marlyn Zucosky (Partner & Director of Interior Design) at Joshua Zinder Architecture + Design.
Mr. Marrs & Mr. Walsh excitedly shared a sneak peak of what NRG’s new Princeton building, located on Route 1 in Carnegie Center, will include. The 130,000 sf building will serve as NRG’s new headquarters and is a mix of sustainable design elements for the sake of the environment and also experiments of NRG initiatives. Learn more about all of the features of the project on NRG’s website, here.
Ms. Zucosky discussed trends they are currently seeing in office space design: layouts that allow for more natural light into the center of the floor plan, open work spaces, huddle areas, game room and other elements to attract Millennials to companies. Mr. Walsh commented that many of the trends JZA+D has been noticing are in fact being employed within the new NRG building. Check out some of JZA+D’s projects here.
Glut, defunct & stranded: What do these words describe?
NJBiz uses these words (in the article linked below) to describe suburban corporate campuses in New Jersey- with enough combined square footage to fill five Empire State Buildings.
PlanSmart NJ has taken on the task of developing a “toolkit” of sorts for municipalities to begin to deal with the 14.5 million square feet of vacant, obsolete office and/or lab space in 94 of the state’s largest (over 200K sf) buildings. These campuses that dot New Jersey’s suburban landscape are often referred to as “stranded assets” and will need some creative thinking to reposition them.
“We’re looking at it holistically — that this is an economic development project, it’s an environmental protection project, it’s a resource efficiency project,” said Ann Brady, PlanSmart NJ’s executive director. “We think there’s a lot of opportunity with these sites, to better connect them to the greater community, to use the infrastructure that’s already there, so we’re directing growth to areas where there’s already existing infrastructure.”
Oftentimes municipalities fear redevelopment, rezoning and mixed-use projects. PlanSmart NJ “hopes to frame the issue by quantifying the problem” with “a major two-year research project that will compile data on vacancy, demographics, property tax appeals and other metrics related to the sites, with the aim of creating a guidebook for local officials and sparking a policy change that could help them find new life as mixed-use assets”.
Glaxo loses jobs, Camden gains a headquarters & sustainable offices evolve
GlaxoSmithKline’s looming job cuts
Earlier this fall it became known that GlaxoSmithKline, British drugmaker, was planning a restructuring of their U.S. operations over the next three years. GSK plans to eliminate $1.57 billion in annual expenses. Details began to surface early this week (read more on njbiz.com) and fears that some of the jobs located in the Parsippany office would be lost began to grow. Once Wednesday rolled around, GSK had announced that there would be significant (upwards of 900 jobs) cuts from North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park and consolidations would happen in Philadelphia offices, with no firm news on New Jersey jobs(details at philly.com).
Camden’s mystery company revealed
Monday morning brought us news from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority: $100 million more incentives and 1,000 jobs were heading to Camden. (full story at Philadelphia Business Journal) At the time, there was no official disclosure of what company would be creating those jobs, although there were suspicions about who it could be. Suspicions were confirmed today when Subaru announced that they would be moving to the Campbell Gateway district. (follow-up article from the Philadelphia Business Journal with new information)
Expanding definition of sustainability
Generally, when one thinks of sustainable practices in office buildings green roofs, rainwater collection and solar panels come to mind. While these are all helpful, companies are finding different ways to be more green. Wyndham Worldwide has a headquarters campus in Parsippany that is prime example on the evolution of a company’s sustainability policy. (learn about it on njbiz.com here)
New Jersey has its first LEED Platinum Industrial Building
It has taken 3 years, but Princetel’s 41,500 square foot repurposing project is finished and just received its LEED Platinum rating, making it the first LEED Platinum industrial building in New Jersey.
LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) is a certification program established by the US Green Building Council that requires buildings to satisfy prerequisites and earn points to achieve different levels of “green” certification. The program supports efforts to promote building practices that have sustainability, health of future occupants, renewable and clean energy use and long-term money savings at the forefront. There are 4 levels of certification: Certified, Silver, Gold & Platinum.
As of August 1, 2014 there are 934 LEED Registered Commercial projects and 343 LEED Certified Commercial projects in the state of New Jersey; Princeton is home to 6 of those. Before this project, Hamilton had 2.
Princetel was founded in Pennington in 2000 and manufactures fiber optic rotary joints. The company moved to Hamilton in 2011 and has doubled its staff since then. CEO Barry Zhang says that the company’s mission is to remain sustainable, and explained that their Hamilton building has turned into a “passion project.”
Read a full story on the LEED Platinum Princetel building here, on nj.com.