Articles Posted in Green Hotels

Published on:

26 April 2009
Hotel Lawyers with a serious new study documenting pricing premiums for GREEN hotels. At least for new construction, properly planned from the outset, there is little or no additional cost for building to LEED certification standards (for example, see my Cornell Hospitality Quarterly article entitled “The Compelling Hard Case for Green Hotel Development.”).

Even the myth that luxury hotels cannot be sustainable has been shattered with beautiful luxury hotels gaining LEED certification, like Montage Beverly Hills recent award of LEED Gold certification.

And just a few days ago, my friend Meng Li, a LEED AP whom I met through JMBM’s 2008 Hotel Developers Conference, sent me a copy of a new study published by two professors at the University of Reading, documenting a very strong economic premium in both rental income and asset prices (sales price) for green buildings based upon data from 553 green projects. The numbers may even amaze you (more than a 31% value premium).

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Published on:

25 April 2009

Hotel Lawyers with success stories on GREEN hotels. The hotel lawyers in JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® are big believers in “green” hotels. Many industry friends continue asking for the DVDs and great presentation materials from last year’s Hotel Developers Conference on green hotel development. Most of these resources are available on www.HotelLawBlog.com under the “TOPIC” of Green Hotels. The events I am reporting on today build on the base of that knowledge and experience, and thus lead us to “Green Hotel economics 202.”

As many of you know, we believe that green building is the ECONOMICALLY prudent way to go. That is the entire thesis of my Cornell Hospitality Quarterly article entitled “The Compelling Hard Case for Green Hotel Development.”

Still, I was pleasantly surprised when two new items ended up on my desk this week. They are both further demonstration confirming the hard economic value of green development. The first item was the LEED Gold certification awarded to one of my favorite luxury hotels, Montage Beverly Hills under the direction of my friend, Ali Kasikci. The second was a new study published by two professors documenting a very strong economic premium in both rental and value (sales price) for green buildings based upon data from 553 green projects. The numbers may even amaze you (more than a 31% value premium). But that is a story for the next blog . . .

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Published on:

14 September 2008


Hospitality Lawyer with an index of articles on Green Hotel Development and more

The hotel lawyers at JMBM receive many calls from hotel owners and hotel developers looking to build LEED-certified hotels and to operate their hotels more sustainably. We increasingly see developers selecting their entire development and management team based on “green” hotel development experience. It is critical for the architects and consultants, but why shouldn’t you have a team where everyone understands what the focus is? Why should you be paying for on-the-job training instead of getting helpful input from each contributing member?

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Published on:

12 September 2008

Green Hotel Lawyer: “The Compelling Hard Case for Green Hotel Development ” is published by Cornell Hospitality Quarterly.

JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® has a long history of supporting green hotel development. We believe that sustainability is not only the responsible, but also the financially smartest approach to hotel development and renovation.

We are very proud to announce that the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly has just published our most recent contribution on this subject, entitled: The Compelling Hard Case for Green Hotel Development.” Here is the download link to a FREE copy of the article.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
21 June 2008
Hospitality Attorney’s top insights to hotel industry. As we approach the half-way mark in 2008, the hospitality lawyers in JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® thought it would be interesting to determine our readers’ “top picks” of all the articles we have posted this year. We could almost say that the top three picks are hotel financing, hotel financing and hotel financing. But here are the top three picks by “Topics” at www.HotelLawBlog.com:

(1) Hotel financing and hotel values in buy-sell transactions
(2) Hotel management agreements
(3) LEED and GREEN hotel development

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
19 June 2008
Hospitality Lawyer on green hotel development. Here at www.HotelLawBlog.com, we have a rich library of articles on green hotel development. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for “Topics” and then click on “Green Hotels.”) But as we now release the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels — which are free to all conference attendees — we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations!

Deirdre Wallace is the Founder and President of The Ambrose Collection, a Santa Monica-based company focused on developing and managing eco-lifestyle boutique hotels. Her flagship property, The Ambrose, has won numerous awards since opening in 2003, setting a new industry standard for environmental responsibility while regularly outperforming competitors in both occupancy rate and gross revenues. Deirdre Wallace can be reached at (310) 382-2145 or deirdre@ambrosecollection.com.

In her own words, Deirdre Wallace shares with us her experience of “going green” in an already existing building.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
30 May 2008
Hospitality Attorneys on green hotel development. We have a rich library of articles on green hotel development here at www.HotelLawBlog.com. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for “Topics” and then click on “Green Hotels.”). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels — which are free to all conference attendees — we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations! Here is the presentation from Gary Golla of SERA.

Gary Golla is an Architect and Associate with SERA Architects in Portland, Oregon. SERA is a 90-person employee-owned Architecture, Planning, and Interiors firm with a special focus on sustainable design and development. Gary has 14 years of experience in architecture, much of it focused on hospitality design. His portfolio includes over 2,000 built guestrooms ranging from a 900-room convention center hotel to a 50-room ski resort. Gary is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional and has several LEED registered projects in design and construction. Among those is a 331-room Starwood Luxury Collection Hotel and a 256-room Courtyard by Marriott, both designed with the goal of LEED Silver. Gary Golla can be reached at (503) 445-7361 or garyg@serapdx.com.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
28 May 2008
Hospitality lawyer on the real world cost of going green. “Cost” is the first and biggest excuse developers give for not getting LEED certification or beyond. Yet here is an actual case study of a real world project where the client actually saved several million dollars by building to the LEED Platinum standard! In this case, the magnitude of the savings was enhanced by special credits and incentives available from the State of Oregon, but Kip Richardson says there would still have been net savings of over $1 million without Oregon’s special benefits.

How can this be? Why wouldn’t everyone build a high performance LEED-certified building if they could save money? Is this just a matter of education or of dispelling old myths left over from first generation technologies now surpassed by second and third generation technologies? Here are some insights from a true leader in the field: Kip Richardson, Director of Business Development, Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects. Kip can be reached at (503) 892-7138 or kipr@amaa.com.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
27 May 2008
Hospitality Lawyer on green hotel development. We have a rich library of articles on green hotel development here at www.HotelLawBlog.com. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for “Topics” and then click on “Green Hotels.”). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels — which are free to all conference attendees — we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations!

Here is the complete presentation at The Hotel Developers Conference from Lynn. N. Simon, AIA, LEED AP, President, Simon & Associates, Inc. based in San Francisco, California. She has more than 18 years of experience in green building and helps clients attain LEED certification and sustainability. A California-licensed architect, Lynn has served on the Board of Directors of several building industry organizations, including the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for six years. She is a LEED® Faculty member, a LEED® Accredited Professional, and a Certified Green Building Professional. Lynn can be reached at 415-908-3757 or lynn@greenbuild.com.

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