Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/62026
eco-friendly buildings. Building sustainable shopping centers has always been our business philosophy's core." It helps that Latin America's retail real estate development boom comes now, enabling developers to take advantage of the latest in archi- tecture and tech- nology, says Aldo Volpe, an Argen- tinean architect who has designed several Latin American malls. The exterior of the one-year-old CityMall, which Volpe designed in Guayaquil, Ec- uador, is brightly lit using multicol- ored LEDs. Such extensive lighting Grupo Roble says it has increased usage of natural light at the malls it has built since 2000 by as much as 50 percent over that of its older centers. would never have been financially (or socially) feasible using incandescent or halogen lighting. Grupo Roble, Central America's biggest mall developer, says it has increased usage of natural light at the malls it has built since 2000 by as much as 50 percent over that of its older centers. "The height of the ceilings has also become key for allowing natural light in and [for] better ventilation," said Car- los Figueroa, Grupo Roble's director of corporate marketing and client service. The firm is also using better insulation on its roofs. Energy consumption at Grupo Roble's three-year-old Me- tromall, in Panama, is 15 percent lower than the average for the portfolio. That adds up to major savings, given that energy can consume up to half of a center's operational costs, says Figueroa. Grupo Roble is evaluating other initiatives, includ- ing rooftop solar panels and, in El Salvador, the conversion of organic waste into compost. The challenge is to alter the widely held perception that sustainable construction is difficult and costly, says Jennivine Kwan, the U.S. Green Building Council's vice president of in- ternational operations. "In many countries in Latin America, the key is to ask for the right product," she said. "Many times, the cost of the technology is very reasonable, with significantly higher levels of efficiency, meaning greater operational effi- ciency and lower costs." The up-front cost of green technology and design can be higher (there was a 30 percent premium on the energy-saving equipment installed at Centro Comercial Único Outlet, in Pasto, Colombia), but it pays off quickly, some say. "The 200 SCT / MAY 2012 The 'green' Blue Mall There is more of "green" than blue about Blue Mall St. Maarten, a mixed-use resi- dential-retail project under construction on the Dutch side of the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. The mall's sewage will be turned into fertilizer, and the wastewater from its roofs and bathrooms will be reused to irrigate plantings. Cool LED lighting in the com- mon areas will mean less work for the air-conditioning plant, says Omar Becerra, general manager of Cupecoy Development, a partnership between Venezuela's Fondo de Valores Inmobiliarios and some local investors, which is building the project, sched- uled to open in October. These measures were hard to justify to those financ- ing the project, because they benefit the tenants rather than the landlord, in the form of lower common-area-main- tenance fees, says Becerra. To further cut energy, the building uses wind power for ventilating the parking ga- rage. "It took long periods of time to assess wind currents, and ingenuity to make sure the wind-friendly design did not affect the project's physi- cal appearance and opera- tions," he said. When Blue Mall opens, the tenants will have to be encouraged to sort and re- cycle garbage, Becerra says. But then, the entire project has involved something of a learning curve for everyone. "In all cases, we have faced the same problem: how to get people to behave differ- ently from what they are used to," said Becerra. "First the developers and investors, then our architects, and lastly our tenants. It has taken a mix of incentives and conse- quences to attain behavioral modification." — MBP