Sustainability and Green Design

Boston Baseball

Green Building Benchmarking

Harvard Allston

Jackson Square

JFYNetWorks

Johnson and Wales University

Southfield

Waterstone Retail

W/S Legacy

Boston Baseball

Boston Baseball Field of Dreams LLC is a group dedicated to bringing minor league baseball to the City of Boston. Proposing a new state of the art stadium on the Boston College High School campus, Boston Baseball hopes to provide an affordable, accessible, fan friendly alternative to Fenway Park. Boston Baseball has hired BlueWave to provide strategic counsel in the areas of permitting, green design and public funding.

The stadium, modeled after the nationally-acclaimed Hammons Field in Springfield, Missouri, will include the latest in green building technology. BlueWave is working with Boston Baseball's architects and construction and facility management teams to develop a series of green initiatives that will improve the stadium's overall performance and efficiency. These initiatives will include measures in renewable energy, energy efficiency, water efficiency, materials use, recycling, and green building construction practices. For each green design option, BlueWave will provide a summary of how the technology or practice works and its environmental benefits; preliminary capital and operating cost estimates and anticipated savings over time; and a list of opportunities for public funding from federal, state and local government agencies.

BlueWave will also assist Boston Baseball and its permitting consultants with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) and the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) review processes. This will include drafting language for the filings that addresses the project's commitment to sustainability and green design.

Green Building Benchmarking

In February 2004, California Treasurer Phil Angelides laid out an aggressive "Green Wave" initiative that called on California's two large pension funds - CalPERS and CalSTRS - to take steps that simultaneously create jobs, deliver strong financial returns, and promote environmental protection. One of the four initiative components was a comprehensive environmental assessment of the funds' real estate portfolios. The CalPERS and CalSTRS Boards expressed a specific interest in assessing energy efficiency, water conservation, and waste stream management at portfolio properties.

One of CalPERS' and CalSTRS' largest property managers hired BlueWave and its affiliates to ensure it was complying with the Green Wave initiative in the area of waste stream management and to determine whether the firm's portfolio properties were maximizing their opportunities to reduce long-term costs and increase long-term value through the use of green waste management practices. To accomplish this, BlueWave undertook an extensive "benchmarking" exercise to evaluate the performance of the client's multifamily residential properties with respect to comparable properties and to current and anticipated "best practices" in the area of waste stream management. BlueWave screened and analyzed public data and available literature, including the latest government and industry reports on green buildings, conducted extensive interviews with property management firms, government officials and green building experts and prepared a comprehensive report detailing the findings.

Harvard Allston

Harvard University has acquired more than 200 acres of land to expand its campus into the Boston community of Allston, just across the Charles River from the University's historic Cambridge campus. Over the next 20 years, Harvard plans to build out four to five million square feet of academic, athletic, cultural and residential facilities; new roads, bicycle paths, parks, open spaces; and a 21st century infrastructure for transportation, energy, water and stormwater management. Harvard has committed to local residents, environmental groups, regulators and political leaders that the Allston campus will constitute the strongest expression yet of the University's ongoing commitment to sustainability. To that end, Harvard is developing a detailed set of sustainable design guidelines for the new Allston campus.

BlueWave is a strategic advisor to Harvard University's Allston Development Group on sustainability issues, focusing on environmentally sustainable development in general and on issues relating to water quality and the Charles River in particular. BlueWave works directly with the leadership of the Allston Development Group to help them better understand various sustainability issues and options and how meaningful sustainability commitments can help to advance the University's regulatory and outreach agendas. Specifically, BlueWave is helping Harvard frame its Allston sustainability strategy, present that strategy in easy-to-understand terms, and communicate it effectively to a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. BlueWave is also working as part of the permitting team to draft the sustainability portions of filings required by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (Article 80) and Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA).

Jackson Square

The Jackson Square project will transform an 11 acre brownfield site in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts into a vibrant, mixed-use community that will include 430 housing units (53% affordable), a Youth and Family center, a public indoor recreational facility, and retail and office space - all adjacent to a major public transit station. Jackson Square Partners, the unique development team comprised of three non-profit community development organizations, seeks to make Jackson Square a national model of "super green" transit-oriented development. Three key elements of the project's green strategy are on-site renewable energy generation (solar, geothermal and bio-fuel co-generation), energy efficiency, and green roofs (to cover 70% of each building's roof top).

Jackson Square Partners retained BlueWave to lead several efforts related to "greening" the project:

• Green Strategy and Guidelines Document: BlueWave serves as a key member of the project's "Green Team" (which includes the developers, their consultants, and other environmental experts). BlueWave helped the Team define the environmental goals for Jackson Square and develop a comprehensive "Green Guidelines" document that sets specific environmental targets for the individual buildings as well as the larger master plan elements.
• Greening Capital Campaign: BlueWave is leading the effort to identify and secure public and philanthropic funding to support the project's cutting-edge environmental programs.
• Solar Feasiblity: BlueWave is managing a study funded by MassHousing to determine the technical and economic feasiblity of installing 33 kW of solar photovoltaic panels on one of the housing complexes.
• Bio-fuel Co-gen Feasiblity: BlueWave is managing an MTC-funded study to determine the technical and economic feasiblity of installing a bio-fuel cogeneration system to generate energy for a cluster of buildings.
• Brownfields Management: BlueWave is providing strategic counsel on brownfields strategy and risk management issues and identifying and securing public funding to support the project's brownfields site assessment and cleanup efforts.
• Permitting Support: BlueWave helped draft the state and local environmental review documents (Article 80 and Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act), including those chapters that address sustainability and green design.

JFYNetWorks Green Jobs

The clean energy sector is one of the fastest growing sectors of the Massachusetts economy, representing 14,000 jobs with an annual growth rate of 20%. Legislation pending at the state and local levels will fuel even greater growth. Programs such as the Cambridge Energy Alliance, Boston Energy Alliance, and others that are soon to follow will foster a demand for local workers to fill jobs in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and enabling technologies. JFYNetWorks is Boston's largest workforce and career-development training center for youth and adults, providing them with the job skills training they need to become productive, independent participants in the new economy. In 2007, JFYNetWorks received grant funding to advance job training programs in the new clean energy market and retained BlueWave strategies to support its efforts.

BlueWave Strategies is working with JFY Networks to spearhead three "green jobs" projects in Greater Boston, New Bedford and Lowell. The goal of the projects is to characterize the clean energy industry demand in those communities, identify networks for developing jobs and recruiting the "supply" of candidates, and to perform the community organizing necessary to ensure that the job opportunities created by the clean energy economy reach local residents, particularly the unemployed and low-wage workers. Specifically, BlueWave is assisting with:

• Strategy and Coordination: BlueWave is developing a cross-project work plan to maximize efficiency across the three initiatives (Boston, New Bedford and Lowell), including a database of potential employers, training partners and community-based organizations, and survey instruments and marketing materials for outreach to local employers.
• Research: BlueWave is assisting with in depth research efforts on job training for the clean energy sector, identifying best practices examples from Europe and the United States.
• Community Outreach: BlueWave is leading community outreach efforts by planning, facilitating and documenting the community meetings in Boston, New Bedford and Lowell, and then using the information gleaned from these activities to inform the program development process.

Johnson & Wales University LEED Certification

Johnson & Wales University is constructing an 82,000 square foot building for its College of Culinary Arts at the school's Harborside Campus in Providence, Rhode Island. The University is committed to designing an environmentally sustainable building that will achieve Silver Level Certification under the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for New Construction (LEED-NC) Program. The building will serve as the centerpiece of a larger sustainable development initiative associated with the Culinary School, which will also involve the integration of a sustainable food curriculum. Innovative green features of the building will include a rain water collection tank that will provide water for toilet flushing and landscape irrigation; a white roof that will reflect sunlight to reduce the "heat island effect"; and energy efficient heating and cooling systems. Working as an advisor to the project architect, Tsoi Kobus and Associates, BlueWave provided strategic sustainability counsel to the project team in the following areas:

• LEED Strategy: BlueWave evaluated the building design to assess the technical and economic feasibility of each potential LEED-NC credit and worked with Johnson & Wales and its architect to recommend the most cost-effective approach for achieving LEED certification.
• LEED Team Management: BlueWave prepared a comprehensive LEED checklist containing the target credits, summarizing the information needed to earn each credit, and identifying the team members responsible for generating that information. BlueWave then led the consultant team, which included establishing milestones and deadlines, and ensuring the timely completion of deliverables.
• LEED Certification: BlueWave registered the Culinary School project using the LEED-online website and served as the project administrator to ensure that all documents were uploaded and all online forms com-pleted.

Southfield

LNR Property Corporation is the master developer of a $1 billion, 12-year redevelopment of the 1400-acre former South Weymouth Naval Air Station in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, a Federal Superfund site. Southfield will include housing, a mixed-use village center, a campus for bioscience and light industry, a multi-modal transportation center at an existing commuter rail station, a golf course and substantial recreational amenities. LNR has committed to the community, regulators and elected officials that the mixed-use redevelopment will be a national model for Smart Growth and transit-oriented development. At the same time, the developer is tackling significant environmental challenges including constrained water and wastewater capacity, wetlands and sensitive species, water and natural resource issues, traffic impacts and Superfund remediation.

BlueWave is a strategic advisor to LNR on all environmental aspects of the project. BlueWave activities have included oversight of the remediation and other environmental contractors and regulatory negotiations for remediation plan approval. BlueWave has also coordinated the revised zoning bylaws, regulations and land-use plans. BlueWave continues to assist LNR on land use planning and energy system analysis, transportation infrastructure and financing issues, and on NEPA and state environmental review and permitting of the redevelopment. BlueWave is also deeply involved in the "greening" of the development and created "Sustainability Guidelines" based on the U.S. Green Building Council's draft Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Neighborhood benchmarking system. LNR will use these guidelines and BlueWave's accompanying cost-benefit analysis to incorporate green building and Smart Growth principles into the development plan. Throughout the project, BlueWave has been responsible for ensuring close collaboration among the project planners, investors, engineers and consultants, and key regulatory, political and community stakeholders.

Waterstone Retail Sustainability Strategy

Waterstone Retail Development is a national real estate development, acquisition and management company focusing on grocery-anchored projects and non-traditional specialty centers. Waterstone is working to lessen the environmental impacts of its development projects through improvements in the areas of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, stormwater management, recycling, and the use of "green" building materials.

Waterstone retained BlueWave Strategies to help create a Corporate Sustainability Strategy and to test that strategy at Brick Yard Square, a retail site Waterstone is developing in Epping, New Hampshire.

• Research on Best in Class Practices: BlueWave researched the latest "Best in Class" greening efforts by retail developers and tenants, and developed a Preliminary Sustainability Strategy that synthesized this information and proposed a mission statement and series of goals for Waterstone.
• Facilitation of a Working Session: BlueWave used this preliminary strategy as the basis for a half-day working session with key Waterstone staff to crystallize the firm's environmental goals and develop a gameplan for achieving them. BlueWave and Waterstone focused on five key areas: overall corporate operations, new construction projects, major renovations, existing building operations, and marketing and communications.
• Development of a Final Sustainability Strategy: BlueWave developed a final Corporate Sustainability Strategy that includes a mission statement, set of goals, and concrete short and long-term steps Waterstone will take to improve environmental performance.
• Greening Brick Yard Square: Waterstone believes that "greening" Brick Yard Square will greatly enhance its marketability, particularly among the growing number of retailers that are demanding sustainable development. Using the Corporate Sustainability Strategy as a guide, BlueWave is identifying several opportunities to cost effectively green the project, and is assessing what specific approaches will be needed to achieve additional points under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.

W/S Development

W/S Development - one of the largest privately owned retailed development firms in the country - is building Leg-acy Place in Dedham, Massachusetts. This 675,000 square foot open-air retail center, located at the intersection of I-95 and Route 1, will feature shops, restaurants, entertainment venues and offices, including the new corporate headquarters for National Amusements. The facility is expected to open to the public in the summer of 2009. Several Legacy Place tenants, including Whole Foods Markets, LL Bean, and the Gap, are known for their commitment to environmental stewardship and want to ensure that all of their stores are "green".

As part of its commitment to incorporating sustainable development at Legacy Place, W/S Development retained BlueWave Strategies (1) to assess the feasibility to deploying on-site photovoltaic generation on five building roof-tops, and (2) to coordinate sustainability planning and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) documentation for Building P - a four story commercial and retail building at the center of the development.

• Solar Feasibility: BlueWave evaluated the physical characteristics of five buildings and their rooftops, the projected on-site energy use requirements, and the metering, engineering and interconnection considerations, and recommended preferred locations and systems. Incorporating all possible tax incentives and public investment opportunities, BlueWave's final report includes detailed pro formas and recommendations for engineering and financing the installation. BlueWave is developing ways to make the solar PV more visible to customers to educate them about renewable energy and to help market the "green" attributes of the shopping center.
• LEED Consulting: BlueWave is coordinating the activities of the project team, including architects, mechani-cal and electrical engineers, and the site contractor to ensure that Building P will achieve LEED Silver Certification from the US Green Building Council (USGBC) for Building P. In this role, BlueWave is educating the team members about the purpose of LEED and requirements for credits associated with their work, ad-vising the team on the feasibility of individual LEED credits, and overseeing the preparation of deliverables necessary for verifying LEED certification and delivering those products to the USGBC.