Foram Group CEO Loretta Cockrum is going for the gold. Gold certification, that is, for the developer's massive project, Brickell Financial Centre, which breaks ground April 19 in Miami's financial district.
The 1 million-square-foot mixed-use project is already pre-certified at the silver level of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED system, which evaluates buildings based on their level of efficiency, sustain-ability and eco-friendly design. But Brickell Financial Centre, which is being heralded as Miami's Rockefeller Center, is just points away from becoming Florida's first ever gold-certified building.
Twenty-five South Florida projects are currently registered with LEED, and local government and academics are pushing for more developers to go green. But while some developers see sustainable design as value-added, Cockrum said for her building, green was a no-brainer.
"Once you understand it, I don't know why anybody would not do it," she said. "It's not as difficult as everybody thinks it is."
Sustainable design is new to Miami, but not for the Foram Group, which started as a ranch and timber management company.
"Certain industries have been green forever," Cockrum said. "Because we have farm operations, we are very sustainability oriented. The basic 101 of timber management is sustainability: You cut a tree, you plant a tree."
Cockrum said she also grew up with green principles: core values like turning off the water when brushing your teeth or turning off the lights when you leave a room. She's passed the lessons on to the family's younger generation by building her grandchildren a series of completely sustainable cabins that sit three feet off the ground, use compost toilets and run hot water with a battery-operated pump from a tank on the roof.
'CERTIFICATIONS ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT'
When Cockrum learned that the sustainable principles she had been using for years were part of a formal LEED program that earns tax breaks from government and respect from major corporations, she said she "knew enough to be dangerous."
"I told the architects and principal consultants that it is an absolute requirement that we are LEED-certified," she said.
Experts told Cockrum that a building as complex as Brickell Financial Center - the project includes retail space, a hotel, residential condos, a 10-story parking garage and a 30,000-square-foot public plaza - would be too expensive to build green.
But she persisted and hired a team of architects and consultants, all holding LEED certifications and previous experience with major green projects.
"I am fortunate that I work with developers that understand there are other benefits to building green and sometimes they cost more," said Brenda Morawa, the project's sustainable design consultant. "With Loretta, it wasn't 'how much does this cost?' but 'what benefit do we get from it?'"
Brickell Financial Center will be sheathed with heat-minimizing glass, run an irrigation system from storm water and feature individually controlled air conditioning vents to lower energy expenditure. Even the construction phase will focus on sustainability: All of the water on the construction site will be pumped into an aquifer and recycled.
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