Avenue Living was already committed to upgrading the suites and exteriors, but spent a year convincing the CIB that it could retrofit its multi-family apartments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 49% since the CIB was funding retrofits for large commercial buildings built before 2000. The company will focus on renewable energy generation on-site, low carbon heating and cooling, sensors and smart thermostats, optimized air filtration, water and vapour management, and energy consumption strategies to reduce in-suite utility costs.
While Avenue Living had been installing LED lighting, low-flow toilets, and better appliances to reduce consumption and costs, Jogia said this initiative provides its environmental efforts with a “whole refreshed look” that not only reduces GHG emissions and extends the new cladding, window, and solar roof panels’ life by 20 years, but pays for itself in ten years.
“We really like this because we do something good for the environment, but at the same time, we save a whack of money and accelerate a lot of our capital plans,” he said, noting it has already started work on some buildings. While it has four years to deploy the capital, Avenue Living hopes to be done the initial phase in three years.
Even though the project would pay for itself with 30% energy reductions, Jogia hopes to obtain 50%.
“You then have a longer useful life that can lead to improved cap rates and valuations,” he said. “That enhances returns when you’ve got less consumption, and you can flow through that savings to the bottom line, even after paying for the capital cost of the incremental investment. It’s profitable.”
