Hines’ 717 Texas is the First LEED® Certified Commercial Office Building in Downtown Houston
HOUSTON, TX – February 6, 2009 – (RealEstateRama) – The Houston office of Hines, the international real estate firm, announced today that 717 Texas is the first commercial office building in Houston’s CBD to receive LEED® certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The property was certified to the Silver level in the Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (EB: O&M) program. 717 Texas is a 33-story, 696,000-square-foot multi-tenant office building developed, owned, managed and leased by Hines.
In 2002, the building participated in the LEED for Core & Shell pilot study and has long been regarded as the most sustainable office property in downtown Houston. Designed with sustainability in mind, some of the many green features that reduce energy consumption and promote a healthier tenant work environment include: a green and reflective roof on the parking garage, which reduces ambient temperatures; electrostatically purified outside air and a green cleaning program, which provide superior indoor air quality; filtered and purified drinking water to reduce the use of bottled water; low-flow restroom fixtures for water conservation; and a recycling program that captures 75 tons of material annually, more than 50% of all waste generated by the building. The building also has programs to collect and recycle batteries, computers, printers, microwave ovens, light bulbs, landscaping debris and construction waste.
717 Texas is also ENERGY STAR® labeled by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. With a score of 86, the building performs 37% better than if it were operating at the national average for energy performance. As a result, the property annually avoids greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the pollution generated by the consumption of more than 550,000 gallons of gasoline.
717 Texas is 100 percent leased to tenants including: Avalon Advisors, Calpine Corporation; Charter Title; Crimson Exploration; Jones Day; Kayne Anderson; Plains Explorations; Rosetta Resources; Smith Barney; and TransCanada. Hines Senior Vice President John Mooz said, “Our focus on green building and operation actually started in Houston in the early ‘70s at One Shell Plaza. With the advent of these certification programs, we are validated and more committed than ever to owning and managing sustainable real estate. We see tenants greening their own spaces too. With such a significant amount of real estate, Houston has an opportunity to become a model for other cities.”
Hines is a leader in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program. The firm has more than 95 projects, representing approximately 65 million square feet that have been certified, pre-certified or registered under the various LEED programs. Hines has also labelled more than 130 buildings, representing approximately 76 million square feet, in the ENERGY STAR program.
Hines is a privately owned real estate firm involved in real estate investment, development and property management worldwide. The firm’s historical and current portfolio of projects that are underway, completed, acquired and managed for third parties includes more than 1,100 properties representing approximately 457 million square feet (42.5 million square meters) of office, residential, mixed-use, industrial, hotel, medical and sports facilities, as well as large, master-planned communities and land developments. With offices in more than 100 cities in 16 countries, and controlled assets valued at approximately $25.6 billion, Hines is one of the largest sustainable real estate organizations in the world. Visit www.hines.com for more information. To learn more about sustainability at Hines, visit www.hines.com/about/sustainability.aspx.
