The JBG Companies
JBG Companies raised the bar for sustainable real estate in their Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel. With award-winning architecture and energy-efficient upgrades, the hotel had one more thing to address - the lighting system in its parking garage.
Reduced kW demand
kWh reduced energy annually
Forecasted savings in the first year
Background
JBG Companies is an active investor, owner, and developer in the Washington DC metropolitan area’s real estate market – one of the most dynamic markets in the world. Their diverse portfolio encompasses millions of square feet of office, residential, hotel, and retail spaces, and includes many of the region’s most distinguished properties. JBG’s sustainability efforts are centered around creating value through the strategic design, development and management of properties that result in energy efficiency, resource conservation, and waste reduction.
Situation
JBG links sustainability to the core business of creating and preserving real estate values. The Renaissance Arlington Capital View, which opened in 2011, is a 300-room, full-service hotel located in the heart of Crystal City’s dining and business district in Arlington, Virginia. The hotel is Gold LEED-certified and boasts award-winning architecture inspired by motion and enhanced light. Despite the impressive energy efficiency of the property itself, the property’s parking garage needed to upgrade the outdated lighting system. This would not only yield operating savings with a direct impact on real estate value, but it would also add to the significant environmental impact JBG deems a priority.
Solution
The energy efficient lighting project incorporated new LED canopy fixtures to replace more than 270 metal halide fixtures. Additionally, almost 100 four foot fluorescent fixtures were replaced with new reduced wattage T8 lamps and electronic ballasts. LED wall packs were installed on the parking ramps and the lighting for the entire garage facility was standardized to maximize energy savings and reduce maintenance costs. Careful design and planning was undertaken to account for the traditional challenges associated with a lighting retrofit in an indoor parking facility – insulated ceilings, mechanical rooms, ancillary spaces, loading docks and the need to work around the potential issues of reduced parking capacity during installation.
Both the design/audit and implementation phases were conducted by Eco Engineering.
Energy Savings
This project exceeded expectations regarding reductions in annual monthly demand and consumption.
- Annual Demand Reductions: > 480 kW in the first year
- Annual Consumption Savings: > 350,000 kWh per year
Incentives
When coupled with the incentives from local energy provider, Dominion Utilities, the entire project was able to achieve a projected payback period of four years, meeting all financial criteria established by JBG.
- The lighting portion of the electricity bill was reduced by more than 70%.
- The project generated more than $32,000 in savings over the first year.