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As states, cities and towns develop an interest in restoring historic buildings, and as the tax benefits of doing so make costs manageable, many companies are retrofitting one of these older buildings instead of building new facilities. 

The benefits of refurbishing an older building into a modern office center include:

• Better location. Many older buildings are located in walkable urban areas, providing a level of visibility and community presence that a new building located on the edge of town simply wouldn’t offer.
• Forgiveness. From tax abatements to “grandfathering” under zoning or other ordinances, refurbishing an older building comes with benefits that building new does not  — and it can greatly improve your company’s relationship with local government offices and the Chamber of Commerce. 
• Public image. As the Wisconsin Historical Society notes, “Buying and preserving an older commercial building also allows you to benefit from, and contribute to, the well-being of your community.” It also immediately boosts your reputation in the eyes of local customers, clients and job candidates who have fond memories of the building and its surrounding areas.

Turning an old building into a “new” one, however, comes with its own set of challenges. For example, as Daniel P. Coffey notes in an article for the American Society of Real Estate Counselors, you’ll need to choose whether to renovate, rehabilitate or restore. 

And many, if not all, of these challenges fall under the purview of facilities management. FM teams play a critical role in every aspect of the business, notes Aramark’s Roger Peterson—and therefore have a key role to play in the decision of whether or not to refurbish an older building for office use.

Here, we’ll explore several important considerations when refurbishing an old building.

Bringing Vintage Into the 21st Century: Making Older Buildings Energy-Efficient

Energy efficiency isn’t just the law in many places: it’s also good business. To meet modern and ever-changing energy efficiency codes, many companies turn immediately to building from the ground up. 

Starting with an older building, however, may be more energy-efficient than you think. Sarah DeWeerdt at Conservation Magazine points out that buildings built before 1920 are more energy efficient than buildings built between 1920 and 2000 — and that many of them are even more efficient than buildings built in the past ten years.

How Do Older Buildings Stay Efficient?

Older buildings are often more energy-efficient than their newer counterparts for several reasons:

• They’re well-built. Older buildings often used old-growth wood, brick and stone, plaster, metal, terra cotta and structural glass to ensure the structure would last.
• The details are energy-efficient. High ceilings, sash windows, and thick walls help reduce energy use.
• Open spaces permit adaptive reuse. Older buildings are often suitable for retrofitting in the form of insulation, storm windows, and roof solar panels.

Energy costs come from some surprising places when it comes to building. In her TED Talk “The Tradeoffs of Building Green,” Catherine Mohr discusses the “embodied energy” of building materials. While this energy cost can be reduced when building new, restoring or refurbishing an older building cuts it even further by tapping into the embodied energy that already exists within the structure. 

Smarter Building, Smarter You: How Smart Technology Makes Facilities Management Easier

Extensive research has been performed in the past decade on “smart” buildings: buildings with integrated technology that allow facilities management teams to more easily track, manage, and control every aspect of the space they manage.

Some of the top tools for energy benchmarking are easily adapted to older buildings. For example, consider:

• EnergyStar. The EPA’s energy management tools are free, and in many ways, EnergyStar is the standard against which other benchmarking methods are measured. If you’re ready to move beyond this classic, however, other options exist.
• Internal investigations. Facilitiesnet’s Jenny Carney recommends an investigation into points at which heating, cooling, or lighting are excessive by comparing the building’s set points with the actual need and use.
• Track, compare... and analyze. One thing EnergyStar won’t do is tell you how to improve your score. For that, Chris Pieper recommends using energy analytics software that can help you better understand your company’s energy performance. The right program can help you measure and improve sustainability, realize investment opportunities, identify opportunities for improvement and realize greater real-time energy cost savings. The best part: your software doesn’t care whether your building is new or refurbished.

According to Cliff Majersik, executive director of the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), better energy management can help cut organizational costs as much as 10 percent. And tracking those costs is one of the best ways to control them.

Open For Business: Creating a Productive Work Environment in a Refurbished Building

In a TED Talk titled “How to Build Your Creative Confidence,” David Kelley talks about the concept of “guided mastery”: bringing someone, step by step, to the achievement of a goal. While few facilities managers think in terms of “guiding” building staff to greater productivity, in fact, the work environment can have a great deal to do with how well those who work in the space can achieve their goals.

One of the most important ways facilities managers help guide mastery is by creating and managing harmonious spaces. Jason Fried, in a TED Talk titled “Why Work May Not Happen at Work,” notes that offices are often harmful to productivity for two reasons: inefficient meetings, plus involuntary interruptions. Facilities managers can do much to minimize the latter by incorporating smart technology and considering carefully how a space is to be used.

How can refurbishing an older building help guide mastery and maximize productivity? Consider the following links:

• Refurbishment provides control. Whether the building is to be stripped “down to the studs” and rebuilt or its existing spaces are to be used as-is, working with an older building provides creative control within the context of an existing space. To get the most out of a redesign, include members from every team in an exercise in what David Logan calls “tribal leadership.”
• Smart buildings are more information-efficient, too. Reduce the number and increase the efficiency of meetings by using smart technology. Consultants like greeNEWit and WegoWise can help.
• Set the benchmarks that support your people. IFMA Fellow Peter S. Kimmel offers a benchmarking guide that can help you decide what to benchmark within your own organization.

It Feels Like Home: Fostering Comfort for Company Staff

In a TED Talk titled “Architecture That’s Built to Heal,” architect Michael Murphy discusses how to create spaces that foster wellness, not just productivity. Creating these spaces isn’t the sole purview of architects, however. Facilities managers have extraordinary control over the day to day comfort level of people who use the building, as ServiceChannel’s David Markowitz notes.

Facilities management, design, and architectural teams would do well to collaborate on comfort questions during the refurbishment phase in order to answer questions like:

• Is the lighting comfortable? Bob Ford notes that employees who have access to natural light are more likely to show up for work on time and more likely to innovate while they’re there.
• What types of work does the space support? The open spaces found in the upper floors of many older buildings support a number of workspace designs, including ideal setups for coworking — which, as WorkDesign Magazine’s Sean Selby notes, offers a number of positive benefits for team comfort and inspiration.
• Where do people “collide”? Collisions aren’t a bad thing, according to Ed Nolan, senior vice president for workplace strategy at JLL. In fact, they can spark creativity and foster a sense of family that wouldn’t otherwise exist. Older buildings, with their emphasis on beautiful and inspiring public spaces, offer ideal “collision” sites.

Refurbishing an older building presents certain challenges for facilities management teams attempting to maximize staff members’ comfort in the space. However, it also presents extraordinary opportunities for many organizations, the benefits of which should not be overlooked.

Credits:

Crew
Breather