The Company
LBA Realty is a full-service real estate investment and management company with a diverse portfolio of office and industrial properties throughout Texas, Chicago, New Jersey and New York. The foundation of the company is to create and execute customized value creation programs for individual properties and to develop strong customer relationships.
The Challenge
Extending an Environmental Commitment
LBA Realty’s Park Place campus in Irvine, Calif. combines modern workspaces with onsite amenities to form a unique mixed-use campus with more than 1.8 million square feet of Class A office space. LBA Realty demonstrates commitment to environmental responsibility across its portfolio in multiple ways, ranging from electric vehicle charging to material reuse and recycling, but they sought new ways to improve energy efficiency and reduce consumption at Park Place. Although Park Place has both LEED Gold and ENERGY STAR® Premier Member certifications, one initiative at Park Place focused on implementing smart building technologies capable of advancing sustainability, helping to balance the grid during peak times and reducing costs for tenants without impacting their comfort.
The Solution
Pulse Building Optimization
In 2015, LBA Realty upgraded its HVAC management offering to include Yardi Pulse Building Optimization, an intelligent energy optimization solution, at no additional hardware cost. Building Optimization assesses and automatically adjusts the HVAC set points every 30 seconds, ensuring that the entire Park Place complex uses the minimum energy necessary for heating and cooling as required by occupancy, weather and other conditions, while still maintaining tenant comfort.
Building Optimization is a flexible solution that manages resources effectively. It transfers the right amount of load throughout the campus while accounting for specific needs, such as having a critical load that requires a fixed chilled water temperature set point. Building Optimization complemented the automated demand response offering, LOBOS DR, that was installed at Park Place in 2010.
The Story
Buildings Working Intelligently
Since October 2015, LBA Realty has realized annual savings of over 4 million kWh at Park Place with Building Optimization. Park Place also delivers 1.4 MW of demand response capability.
Perry Schonfeld, principal at LBA Realty, discussed LBA Realty’s ongoing energy efforts at the 2017 Realcomm conference in San Diego. He described Pulse as an “artificial intelligence software” that is advancing the Park Place complex. He discussed Pulse Building Optimization within the context of LBA Realty’s broader mission of bringing its vision of “intelligent buildings” to life.
