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Building obtains Energy Star rating |
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Monday, 06 October 2008 |
By James T. Hammond
SCBIZ Daily Staff
COLUMBIA -- The 17-story Bank of America Plaza in Columbia has been named an Energy Star building by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. It is the only office building in South Carolina to have received the designation.
The 322,978-square-foot tower at 1901 Main St. is among Columbia’s five largest commercial office buildings. It occupies 2.5 acres, and the building is surrounded by a tree-lined plaza. It was built in 1989 by Edens & Avant.
NAI Avant is a current tenant and the leasing agent for the building. It has changed hands several times and was purchased in 2006 by CRI Inc. of Arkansas for $43.2 million.
Whitney Smith, CRI’s local representative, said the building is 94% occupied. Bank of America has the top floor and several other spaces, including the retail banking facility on the ground level.
“We don’t have a large space available now; we have a lot of niches,” Smith said. “But we can often reconfigure space to pull in a new tenant.”
Allen Stewart, the chief building engineer, said CRI has spent about $1 million upgrading the HVAC systems in the building and making other improvements to achieve the Energy Star rating. Also, lighting controls are being computerized to give tenants the ability to regulate lighting in their own spaces and reduce energy consumption.
The EPA rates energy performance on a scale of 1-100 relative to similar buildings nationwide. Buildings rating 75 or greater qualify for the Energy Star designation. CRI’s 1901 Main St. building scored an 85, Stewart said.
The rating, Smith said, will be a new tool for recruiting tenants and keeping existing tenants, who pay a portion of the building’s energy bill.
“There’s definitely a payback for our tenants,” Smith said.
Stewart had not calculated a precise percentage savings since CRI bought the building, but he added, “Even though energy rates have continued to rise, our energy consumption and our bills have come down.”
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