by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

How do you . . . renovate an historic building and achieve a high level of LEED® when few points are awarded for reusing an existing structure?

Summary: Tise-Kiester Architects took eight neglected buildings in downtown Raleigh, N.C., and created a Class-A facility for owner Empire Hardhat. Cherokee Investment Corporation, a private equity firm that redevelops brownfields is the largest tenant in the 48,000-square-foot space. To visually and concretely express their mission and values, Cherokee worked with Tise-Kiester to create one of the world’s few LEED Platinum historic facilities.

Cherokee Investment Corporation is a private equity firm that specializes in brownfield redevelopment. Created in 1984, the firm focuses on delivering strong financial returns while creating positive environmental and social results. Headquartered in downtown Raleigh, N.C., Cherokee has invested in nearly 550 properties worldwide and currently has over $2 billion under their management.

Due to its growth and success, a few years ago Cherokee found itself needing a new headquarters building. To support the organization’s mission and illuminate its values, Cherokee sought to inhabit a facility in downtown Raleigh that needed a little TLC. “We were outgrowing our past office space and decided we had to move,” says Chris Wedding, Cherokee’s LEED accredited professional on the project. “We wanted to make sure that the place we moved into fit not just our values, but also our business focus.” In addition to increasing value in the downtown infrastructure by renovating a historic property, Cherokee also sought to provide their employees a work environment that was as healthy and sustainable as possible.

Reflecting its mission
The firm’s new headquarters building was previously a 100-year-old furniture store. To renovate the property, Cherokee worked with Tise-Kiester Architects, building owner Empire Hardhat Construction, Carter & Burgess, and Thompson Consulting. “We made sure to clarify our sustainability goals very early on in the project so the team understood what LEED meant, what LEED-CI meant, what the different points looked like, the requirements, and who’d be involved in making sure we met those requirements, and it turned out quite well” elaborates Wedding. “It helped to have a strong buy-in from the top in our organization and a strong commitment to what we were going to do.” Their early efforts clearly paid off: Cherokee’s headquarters is one of only a handful of historic renovation projects worldwide to achieve LEED Platinum for Commercial Interiors.

“As a corporation, they had the people in place there who understand LEED and sustainability, and they did a really good job of doing their own level of research,” says Don Tise, AIA, principal-in-charge, Tise-Kiester Architects. “They went beyond architecture and the interiors that we handle so that every single aspect was covered.”

Project description
Begun as a shell renovation, the project combined 8 properties with 10 addresses in downtown Raleigh. The shell building occupies the corner of Hargett and Wilmington Streets and encompasses 48,000 square feet, says Tise. As the largest tenant, Cherokee inhabits approximately 22,000 square feet of the newly renovated space.

“The shell was in pretty good shape, once we did the shell restoration, and was about 80-90 percent complete when we started design of the Cherokee upfit,” explains Tise. “What [building owner] Empire was trying to do was take these eight different buildings and turn them into one building that could be leased out like a Class-A office building. We set it up so that there could be multiple small tenants or one large one, which ended up being Cherokee. They think of it as a Class-A shell that they were going into, just a really nice looking brick and wood one instead of your typical Class-A.”

Sustainable features
The new facility incorporates energy-saving concepts such as a highly insulated, reflective roof to reduce heat gain, ENERGY STAR-certified office equipment and efficient lighting systems. Craig A. Carbrey, AIA, the project architect, explains that daylighting was the toughest issue for the design team. “The fact that it was an existing building made that much more challenging, since only the south and west walls of the existing buildings had windows,” he says. They hurdled the obstacle by “cutting a few strategic windows here and there” so that 90 percent of the office occupants have views to the exterior.

Other sustainable measures include high use of FSC-certified woods, efficient faucets and waterless urinals, high efficiency HVAC, and zero- or low-VOC paints, adhesives, sealants, furniture, and carpeting. The facility provides occupants with easy access to public transportation, along with showers and bike storage to encourage zero-emission transportation.

Through the carefully executed renovation, approximately 86 percent of the construction and demolition waste was diverted from the landfill. Greater than 60 percent of the office interior was reused, yet energy consumption is reduced by over one-quarter and water consumption is down by nearly half. Finally, the office workstations selected by Cherokee contain 82 percent recycled content.

Cherokee’s Chris Wedding says that the new facility has been a great source of employee enthusiasm and pride. “It’s something to remind us of the cool work that we’re able to do redeveloping communities,” he enthuses. “In a way this project was almost a learning lab where we learned what works and doesn’t work in a green office and we’re able to translate that knowledge to leverage it to help influence larger redevelopment in our projects.”

Historic renovation and the LEED system
“The challenge from a LEED certification standpoint is that the USGBC really doesn’t recognize renovation,” bemoans Tise. “They’re working towards it, but they don’t recognize renovation in the point system they currently have. That’s the big challenge in general, but it’s getting better.”

“Unfortunately, there’s a dearth of projects that combine LEED or green design and historic renovation,” adds Wedding. “Hopefully those two worlds will start to come together a little more. They certainly have shared interests.”