9
O P I N I O N
Shared infrastructure
T he emphasis on water and energy conservation and enhanced security is changing how developers, investors, municipalities, and tenants are looking at new development. Shared infrastructure is the prudent way to go for all, including the planet. To save scarce resources, provide enhanced services, and reduce costs, the trend is to look at multiples of buildings as a district with common utilities.
Ed Friedrichs
For many years, unless those in our industries controlled a large, multi-building parcel (and even sometimes then), each building was designed with stand-alone utilities. Today, to save scarce resources, provide enhanced services, and reduce costs, the trend is to look at multiples of buildings as a district, where shared infrastructure supports the entire area. This approach is not new. Typically, shared infrastructure is part of college, medical, and large industrial campuses and, occasionally, for multiple-building office parks. I started down this path of shared infrastructure in Orange County, California, in the mid-‘80s on a handful of multi-building office complexes. The execution then was simple, but the objectives are the same as today. On one project, we put the chillers, boilers, and cooling towers along the parking structure to achieve efficiency in
operation and allow better access for servicing the equipment. More than one building could utilize the ground-level heating and cooling equipment rather than depending on individual rooftop equipment and the attendant servicing costs. On a more advanced project, we installed sun shades around four buildings to reduce heat gain and had one set of chillers and boilers in a “Today, to save scarce resources, provide enhanced services and reduce costs, the trend is to look at multiples of buildings as a district, where shared infrastructure supports the entire area.”
See ED FRIEDRICHS, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER March 12, 2018, ISSUE 1239
Made with FlippingBook Annual report