Experience local shipping options and optimized product inventory for your region.
When paying more pays off
By LIZ WOLGEMUTH - lwolgemuth@nwherald.com
WOODSTOCK – It isn’t often that a business owner volunteers to build his new headquarters at a 35 to 40 percent cost premium.
But the design and construction of Other World Computing’s new 35,000-square-foot offices is adhering to some of the strictest voluntary environmental and resource conservation standards, crafted by a Washington-based non-profit group.
“It’s just smart planning,” said the technology company’s founder Larry O’Connor. “It’s responsible ... and over time, it’s an investment you do get back.”
O’Connor joined a growing number of U.S. business owners looking to cut down on energy costs and improve working conditions for their employees by building “green,” while also showing a willingness to bspend more for what they expect will be a long-term return on investment.
Construction began last month on the building, which is on 12 acres along Route 14 in the Lake Shore Business Park, near Centegra Memorial Medical Center. Work is expected to be completed by the end of year.
The offices will house Other World Computing’s 80 employees. The company develops and sells products and hardware for Mac- and PC-compatible computers and iPods, largely through www.macsales.com, and also is the parent company of two Internet service providers.
O’Connor is committed to following Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards established by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council.
LEED is a nationally recognized benchmark for construction that has a minimal impact on the environment. The guidelines for LEED certification provide a kind of road map for building “green,” and O’Connor is reaching for the second-highest gold certification.
In Illinois, 11 buildings are LEED certified gold or platinum, including a St. Xavier University residence in Chicago and Pharmacia Corp.’s 176,000-square-foot lab in Skokie.
A LEED commercial construction project is awarded points in five areas – sustainable sites, energy, atmosphere, water efficiency, and indoor environmental quality. A gold certification requires at least 39 points.
Laureen Blissard, vice chairwoman of the building council’s Chicago chapter, said LEED certification was a growing trend among business owners who wanted to cut energy costs and improve worker satisfaction.
“The real key is what the longterm payback is,” Blissard said. “If you pay a little bit more for lighting, it should be able to pay for itself.”
There are LEED projects in all 50 states, and a total of 6,415 LEED-registered projects worldwide.
“It’s just a smarter way to run a business,” she said.
LEED certification is based on points and the requirements are exacting. For example, to reduce pollution and land impact, companies can earn a point for providing bicycle racks and storage for 5 percent of their workers within 200 yards of the building entrance, along with shower and changing rooms for 0.5 percent of the full-time occupants, also within 200 yards.
Other World Computing’s headquarters will include features such as fiber optic rooftop panels to supplement office lighting and a geothermal heat pump system with energy savings of up to 50 percent over natural-gas systems.
The new building not only will bring together 80 employees now spread across three locations, but O’Connor estimated it also would keep energy costs at the same level as at the company’s existing 11,000-square-foot headquarters.
He also expected it would help with employee recruitment.
O’Connor’s father, Larry O’Connor Sr., said there’s “nothing simple” about LEED’s strict procedural process.
“Very, very few [LEED-certified buildings] have been done with private money,” O’Connor Sr. said.
But the O’Connors are trying to be stewards of the environment.
“I was brought up in the country, Larry was brought up in the country,” O’Connor Sr.
He has helped nurture his son’s entrepreneurial ideas since the tech whiz began re-inking printer ribbons in the 1980s.
Now at the wizened age of 32, O’Connor the son has owned his business for 19 years.
“From day one, we’ve sought high expectations,” he said. “We under promise and over deliver.”