The Tomorrow Building is a four-story, 40,000 square foot building in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee that was originally built as a hotel in 1888. After a $9.5 million transformation, it houses 39 furnished micro-unit apartments, shared social and work spaces, and four locally owned retailers. The building’s developer is part of an incubator for early-stage companies, which has found that the co-living concept has helped with retaining employees.
With the over $40 million that Greenprint members report investing on ESG projects in 2018, many elements of those investments (such as lighting retrofits, occupancy sensors, and even building envelope upgrades) can be considered when incorporating sustainability into leases. Landlords and tenants continue to bridge the gap and overcome the split incentive— the issue that arises when one party pays the utility costs and the other pays for building upgrades such as a more efficient building envelope, HVAC, or other base building systems. Green, or “energy aligned” leasing, is a way to overcome this.