In a soft commercial real estate market, property owners are doing what it takes to outfit buildings to make them attractive to tenants.
Case in point: Carruth Capital, the Westborough-based commercial real estate firm that owns 36 buildings across the MetroWest region, recently completed a solar panel installation on the roof of a Westborough office building at the request of the building’s tenant, Conservation Services Group.
CSG, a nationwide energy management firm that specializes in running rebate programs for utility companies, recently moved within Westborough to 50 Washington St., the company’s new headquarters. With the solar installation and about $800,000 in other building improvements, the company’s new headquarters will now be a LEED-certified building, or approved as a national Leadership in Energy Efficiency Design structure.
“Vacancy is high, it’s a tenant’s market,” said Chris Egan, president of Carruth Capital. “Now’s the time to lease office space and if you’re a tenant, it’s a good time to have a conversation with your landlord.”
Here Comes The Sun
Officials from CSG knew they wanted to house the company in an energy-efficient building, said Marc Verreault, a senior vice president at Carruth.
Wanting to ensure the firm kept CSG as a client, Carruth agreed to make upgrades to the 50 Washington St. complex to get it certified as a green building, said Verreault.
As part of that effort, 50 solar panels, which are expected to create 15,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, have been installed on the roof of the building.
Carruth invested about $800,000 to retrofit the electric heating, ventilation and air conditioning unit in the building and transfer it to a natural gas system, Verreault said. The building now also has a retrofitted cafeteria and two electric vehicle charging stations.
Carruth was happy to make the outfits for CSG in order to keep the firm as a client, Verreault said.
“Westborough is turning into an energy efficiency hub for companies,” he said, noting that battery maker A123 of Waltham leases space in the community, as well as Energy Federation Inc., which processing energy rebates for utility customers.
The CSG project is not the only solar panel display Carruth is installing. Just down the street at 40 Washington St., the company plans to install a 1-megawatt solar electricity field that will house more than 3,100 solar panels.
“We see this as an investment opportunity,” said Egan, who noted that the project should net the company some revenue and allow the firm to supply renewable power to its tenant customers.
As for the 50 Washington St. location, even with CSG moved in, Egan said the building is not yet fully occupied, making it one of many the firm owns with excess space to lease in the region.
