Wareham Development In the News

SUSTAINABILITY, SOLAR & 
THE "GREENING" OF THE BAY AREA

In late July, San Francisco-based solar services provider, and pioneer in providing
Solar as a Service, Recurrent Energy hosted a Bay Area-focused sustainability roundtable that was moderated by Vladimir Bosanac, publisher of The Registry.  The discussion, held at the Orrick Building in San Francisco, was centered on green building and sustainability in commercial real estate, as well as the use of alternative energy sources, such as on-site solar power generation. The panelists discussed the increasing demand among tenants for sustainable space in buildings as diverse as warehouse-distribution centers, offices, public amenities and lifescience laboratories, as well as the economic consequences of this trend for owners and investors.  

The participants also looked at wide-ranging issues such as financing and the role of
banks in funding sustainable improvements, the development of "green" design techniques, the growing use of solar installations in public and private buildings and also how San Francisco is approaching and supporting the "green" movement in real estate.  

(Read the Entire Transcript Here)

CHRIS BARLOW 
Partner, Wareham Development
www.warehamdevelopment.com

 

CHRIS BARLOW:   I'm Chris Barlow with Wareham Development.  We're a privately held developer based in San Rafael.  Our portfolio is almost entirely in the East Bay.  We build in Emeryville, Berkeley and Point Richmond.  We also have a couple of buildings in Marin.

Our specialist niche is life science and physical science buildings.  We have nearly two million square feet on the lease and we are proud to have as part of our portfolio the State of California, Department of Justice, DNA Forensic Laboratory in Richmond, one of our main spaces.

 We are extremely interested in maximizing the energy efficiency of our buildings,
particularly in the life science sector and I'm sure we will come to that later where energy
consumption on a per-square-foot-basis is considerably greater in an office building, for
various reasons.  As a company, we've already explored and have installed photovoltaic panels.  We have already explored and installed co-generation units and we are looking aggressively down the line in terms of finding alternative energy sources to sustain both the requirements of our tenants but also to reduce what I call "our large carbon shoe size," because everyone is calling it carbon footprint. Maybe we can start with carbon shoe size.

About Wareham Development

Wareham Development is committed to the long-term economic and environmental vitality of the communities where we do business. During the planning process, we work closely with city and state agencies to ensure that each project provides maximum benefit to its surrounding community. And, unlike many developers who build projects only to sell them, we retain ownership of the majority of our developments, many of which have come to define the thriving technology corridor between the Bay and Richmond-San Rafael bridges.

The Wareham vision encompasses the spark and promise of small companies on the verge of growth, and large corporations whose fortunes span the globe. We are proud of our associations with all of our tenants, and feel deeply privileged to play a role in their success.