Green Building Attorney

A green building project without sufficient insurance coverage will never get out of the ground, which is why the recent efforts of Marsh to review current trends in the marketplace with respect to green building insurance issues have been particularly insightful.

While I’ve talked extensively here at gbNYC about the potential for green design services rendered by architects and engineers to trigger exclusions in professional liability policies (in relation to the signing of credit submittal templates in connection with LEED projects) the Marsh report did not explicitly discuss this specific risk. However, the report did note the potential liability for design professionals who guarantee or warrant “an outcome without having complete control over things such as construction means and methods, and operation and maintenance” (such as credit submittals in support of a project’s recycled-content material or percentage of recycled construction debris, where means and methods outside of the design professional or LEED consultant’s control may contribute to an unanticipated outcome).

Chapter 1 of the 2007 Building Design + Construction Green Buildings White Paper, “AEC Industry Continues to Embrace Green Building, But Is It Still Only a Niche?,” includes three pages of quotes from industry stakeholders regarding, among other things, their attitudes towards the role of A/E/C professionals in green building, prevailing green market conditions, defining and choosing green products, and the regulatory aspects of green building. We present ten of the most compelling quotes below to frame a glimpse of where green building stands at the start of 2008 (at least according to the BD+C survey that was completed by 631 recipients of its print publication and forms the basis of the White Paper). You can check out all of the quotes beginning on page 14 of the White Paper.

“If we are truly being green, we should renovate and not build new.” Scott Thomas, partner, Zagrodnik + Thomas Architects, San Diego, CA.

“The ‘green’ movement is becoming an opportunity for a few people to make a lot of money on the backs of those who have always designed with the environment and the good of the end users in mind.” James Howard, LWPB Architects, Norman, OK.

“Owners are the drivers. If they ask up front for green design and are willing to pay a little more for the design and construction, they can get it. Few owners ask and are often too tight-fisted to consider it.” Randall Boyd, architect, Fuqua & Partners Architects, Huntsville, AL.

“LEED certification is time-consuming, cumbersome, very bureaucratic, and not conducive to new work or commissions.” Quentin Dart Parker, Archwork.com, Pacific Palisades, CA.

“Most clients that are educated about the benefits of building green don’t have any reservations about building to LEED requirements- even if the building isn’t registered or certified [with USGBC]. It just makes sense financially.” Amy Pearce, project manager, Bovis Lend Lease, Houston, TX.

“Green building advocates argue that green design adds only up to three percent to the cost of construction. While this may be correct with regard to institutional-quality buildings, on our commercial projects- such as speculative office buildings and light industrial structures- the premium is significantly more.” Rob Thrun, vice president of architecture and engineering, Al Neyer, Inc., Cincinnati, OH.

At a press conference last week, Governor Spitzer announced plans for the redevelopment of the Averill Harriman State Office Campus, which consists of 330 acres adjacent to SUNY-Albany. 653,000 square feet of existing vacant buildings will be transformed into a mixed public-private LEED-certified sustainable development. Spitzer’s plan calls for the adaptive reuse of existing buildings and is being administered by the Harriman Research and Technology Development Corporation (“HRTDC”), a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation. The campus will feature a mix of private business, government, academic, and entertainment tenants, and Spitzer’s plan should have bidders solicited by the end of 2008.