Hoteliers Building Green Properties

Independent hotels and major chains have planted a crop of green hotels, with a few beginning to open, that stem from national guidelines constituting environmentally friendly construction.

Starwood Capital, Starwood Hotels, InterContinental and Fairmont have green hotel properties under construction or are seeking ways to retrofit existing properties.

To achieve true green classification, buildings must adhere to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards set forth by the U.S. Green Building Council. Those standards apply to sustainable site development, water and energy conservation, selection of materials and the quality of the indoor environment. Although there are specific LEED standards for several construction project types—schools, homes, neighborhoods and campuses—there are no such standards specific to hotels, which blurs the green distinction to an extent.

A longtime stumbling block to completing green builds is the added cost of construction. As PKF Consulting noted in a recent study, high construction costs already are preventing a number of planned hotel developments from ever breaking ground. However, green builds are becoming more economically feasible for hotels, analysts said. Not only does following certain standards provide tax breaks for developers, but returns from investments in energy efficiency can more than make up for the additional construction costs, John Fox, senior vice president for PKF in New York, said.

"It adds on the front end, but over the life of the project, it might be worthwhile," he said. "Just look at what happened with energy costs this last year alone."

The first hotel in California to be built in line with the green building council's standards opened last year: the 86-room Orchard Garden Hotel in San Francisco. The hotel, in which more than half its wood-based products were certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, achieved LEED certification and was approved by San Francisco as a green business.

Starwood Capital Group late last year launched a new deluxe brand, "1" Hotels and Residences, which is positioning itself as the first global, eco-friendly luxury hotel brand. With its new builds in the works in Seattle; Mammoth Mountain, Calif.; Scottsdale, Ariz. and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the structures and their interiors will be built to LEED standards, and the Natural Resources Defense Council has signed on as an environmental advisor, according to Starwood Capital Group leader Barry Sternlicht.

"While some hotel brands pay lip service to the environment by asking guests to reuse towels and adding plants to a lobby, '1' is not using eco-friendly jargon simply as a marketing tool," Sternlicht