News
LEED LEGALITIES
July 28, 2010
| Tenants are no longer taking a landlord?s word that LEED cert is going to happen. Thus, lease agreements are now laying out expectations about what happens if certain LEED plans don't come to fruition, Morris Manning and Martin attorney Lee Walker tells us. | |
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| We spoke with Lee about legal issues and trends surrounding LEED. A lot has changed since he gave his first speech on the topic in ?03, he says; now, many big companies have edicts from the top that office and industrial space should be green. Many leases now lay out the penalties if landlords don't get LEED, such as a reduction in rent by 50 cents per SF. Sometimes, lawyers draft the agreement so that if the landlord does everything right and the USGBC denies certification for an arbitrary reason, the penalty would not be enacted, Lee tells us. | |
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| Hines, owner of One Atlantic Center, or IBM Tower, announced in March that it had received Silver LEED-EB status after a major retrofit. While most of the LEED activity so far has been for new construction or buildings undergoing massive renovations, Lee expects the existing building category to generate the biggest percentage of LEED activity going forward, as owners and building managers strive to differentiate themselves in the market. |
