It’s the highest-rated green project in the Baltimore area, and it’s become quite the marketing tool for its occupant, Century Engineering.

The company’s new corporate headquarters in Baltimore County has yielded annual savings for the full-service engineering firm and stands as an example for potential clients to see the positive environmental and financial effects of green building. Current and prospective employees appreciate the modern design, as well.

The four-story, 57,600-square-foot building, which Century Engineering moved to in summer 2006 and totals about 200 employees, meets several standards set by the U.S Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system.

The office incorporates natural daylight, exposed mechanical systems and an open-air environment. Efforts to reduce energy and water consumption help Century Engineering total about $100,000 in annual operating savings.

This story continues below
Advertisement

“It just makes more business sense to think about how we’re affecting the environment in the long run,” Francis Smyth, CEO of Century Engineering, said at a green-building seminar Thursday in Baltimore. “LEED is forcing people to rethink how they have been doing things for a long time.”

The project’s base cost was $7.8 million, with an additional $700,000 needed for the building to reach several LEED standards, most of which went toward optimizing energy performance.

Although the project in total cost $8.5 million, Century Engineering qualified for a $1.1 million green-building tax credit from Baltimore County and a $640,000 green-building tax credit from the Maryland Energy Administration, bringing the effective project cost down to $6.76 million.

During the planning stages, Century Engineering’s building was one a few green projects planned in the Baltimore area, said Monica Robertson, a senior associate at Hord Coplan Macht, a Baltimore architecture firm that designed the project. Many more green projects are in the planning stages in the area, as developers and businesses understand the benefits of going green.

“Soon, LEED isn’t going to be an exception, it’s going to be a standard,” Robertson said.

“This is getting people’s attention, and the energy side of this is huge,” said Ed Hord, a senior principal of HCM. “This is an example of what’s going to happen in the future.”

acannarsa@baltimoreexaminer.com