| IN THE
January
6, 2009 ISSUE |
New Growth in Green Real Estate Funds?
 A new capital fund for environmentally responsible
projects has revived a dormant niche of commercial real estate finance
while providing an object lesson on the effects of investors’
diminished appetite for risk.
Builder Shangri-La Industries based in Los Angeles and partner Thompson
National Properties unveiled plans Dec. 10 for a $100 million fund that
will invest in value-add commercial and industrial projects. Thompson
National is an Irvine, Calif.-based investment and asset manager started
last year by Tony Thompson, the founder of Triple Net Properties.
Dubbed the TNP/SLI Green Building Fund, the venture will focus on assets
that can be retrofitted, repositioned or redeveloped for greater energy
efficiency and environmental sustainability. More specifically, the fund
is intended to help companies that will use Shangri-La’s design-build
and consulting services to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification
criteria for their properties.
Why Capital Improvements Could Be Free
 Q&A with Stephen Gossett Jr., co-founder and vice
president, Transcend Equity Development Corp.
In 1997, Stephen Gossett Jr. predicted that commercial real estate would
become a huge emerging market for retrofitting office buildings that are
not energy efficient. As it turned out, Gossett was prescient given
rising energy costs and forthcoming federal regulation that is
anticipated to impact commercial real estate in the next few years.
At the time, Gossett was employed by CSI Energy Solutions, an energy
services company that primarily targets public sector buildings. There
he began to develop the template for his future company, Dallas-based
Transcend Equity Development Corp., which was launched in 2002 as an
incubator company. To prove the business model, the firm began with a
couple of low-risk projects — 2 million sq. ft. of buildings under
long-term lease to Bank of America and another 2 million sq. ft. of
office buildings owned by publicly traded office real estate investment
trust (REIT) Corporate Office Properties Trust. Transcend is now
targeting the larger office market, including office
REITs.
Green Sheet Roundups
Aging Holiday Inn Gets New Life as Green Courtyard
by Marriott Staff Reports
Grosvenor, the international property development, investment and fund
management group, is embarking on a $35 million renovation and
re-branding of an old Holiday Inn hotel located in Chevy Chase, Md. The
property closed earlier this year and will reopen as a Courtyard by
Marriott in spring 2009. Grosvenor is seeking a silver LEED (Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design) rating from the U.S. Green Building
Council (USGBC) for the newly renovated hotel.
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