The Bishop's School Alumni Blog



The Alumni Association Board of The Bishop's School has launched an all-new online presence for Alumni of The Bishop's School: http://www.bishopsalumni.com/
This blog will have all the latest news, videos and alumni profiles so stay tuned to BishopsAlumni.com!

Parking Garage Lighting Retrofit Reduces Power Consumption by 10,518 KWh!

You may have noticed that over the last two months we have been retrofitting the lighting in the parking garages here at Old Town Plaza. The old and inefficient T12 florescent lamp fixtures (original equipment in the building from more than twenty years ago) were replaced with brand-new Philips F32T8 25W ADV841 XLL Alto T8 florescent lamps.  This represents one of the last projects available for energy efficiency retrofitting here at Old Town Plaza.

These new T8 lamps are not only more energy efficient, but they are also much brighter and put out light in the 4500 kelvin range which is closer to natural sunlight and provides for more optimum lighting conditions for operating a parking garage.  The old T12's were closer to 3500 kelvin and hence more difficult on your eyes when trying to see detail or moving objects.

San Diego Gas and Electric estimates that Old Town Plaza will save 10,518 kilowatt hours annually or about 4-5% of Old Town's total annual power consumption.  All of that just by changing some light bulbs!  Lastly, the lumen output of the new T8's will be roughly 25-50% brighter in some fixtures.  The parking garage is now brighter than it has ever been!

For more information on leasing commercial office space or to schedule a tour of Old Town's Greenest Office Building, contact Matt or Justin at 619-692-0802.

San Diego Office Space for Lease at Old Town Plaza - Class A Build-Out

Intermarket Investment Group is proud to present Suite B-257, now available for lease at Old Town Plaza - San Diego's Greenest Office Space!

Suite B-257 is one of the most luxurious and professional spaces on the entire property.  Built entirely to sustainable "Class A" standards, Suite B-257 features premium Lithonia Avante lighting, an insulated 2x2 grid, recycled carpet squares, natural light harvesting, occupancy sensors, bull-nose corners, smooth-trowel wall finishes, premium laminate cabinetry and full CAT5 integration. 

This suite has the added bonus of also coming fully furnished.

Call Matt or Justin today to schedule your tour: 619-692-0802.

Hand Dryers Save 7,000 Gallons of Water!

Over the past three years Old Town Plaza has invested nearly $500,000 to dramatically reduce the building's energy consumption. Using less energy saves our customers money and trims our carbon footprint. Justin and I thought we had tackled almost every area of energy waste until we discovered paper towels. Old Town Plaza currently uses an astonishing 288,000 paper towels per year! That is the annual equivalent of 24 trees and is responsible for 1,270 lbs of garbage that must be bagged, handled and driven to a landfill.

To combat this problem we have started to install Xlerator hand dryers in the Old Town Plaza bathrooms. The first pair were successfully installed on the first floor of Building A and will yield exceptional savings. These two hand dryers alone will save 317 lbs of paper towel waste, 6 trees, 745 kg of CO2 and 7,000 gallons of water every year! Operating these dryers is also over 80% cheaper than purchasing an equivalent amount of paper towels.

Over the next year we will continue this project throughout the building so as to eliminate paper towel use by 2012.

Sign a New Lease, Plant Some Trees!

For every new lease signed at Old Town Plaza between December 2010 and March 2011, Intermarket Investment Group, LLC will make a contribution to planting trees in sustainable ecosystems right here in San Diego.  These donations will be made in your name and can be counted toward your firm's commitment to reducing it's carbon footprint.

Sign a Lease.  Plant Trees.  It's just that simple!

To find out more about Intermarket's commercial office spaces for lease in San Diego, visit www.LeaseOldTown.com

San Diego Commercial Office Space - Suite A-240 is Available for Lease

Old Town Plaza, Old Town's Greenest Commercial Office Building, is please to announce that Suite A-240 is now ready and available for lease.  Suite A-240 is 505 rentable square feet and features a fantastic windowline - especially for an office suite in this size range.  This office space also features a very shallow bay depth, so the natural light floods the entire office.  The open floor plan offers prospective tenants total flexibility.

Perfect for a variety of applications, Suite A-240 is perfect for start-ups looking to have a great location, secure underground parking, a green upgrades and a commercial office building location that is just minutes from Downtown San Diego.

Call Matt or Justin to schedule your tour today: 619.692.0802.

From USD Business School: What does the research say on green real estate?

Owner-Direct Pricing for Leasing Office Space

Prospective Tenants for Office Space
Old Town Plaza presents prospective tenants with the ability to deal directly with the on-site ownership.  Dealing directly with the owner lowers leasing costs and saves you money! 

Commercial Real Estate Brokers/Agents
As a member of the San Diego Commercial Real Estate community, Intermarket Investment Group is happy to work with ALL procuring Commercial Brokers and Office Agents.  Our lower cost structure allows us to provide enhanced value to procuring Brokers and Agents.

Contact our office today to find out how you can take advantage of these great opportunities!

http://www.leaseoldtown.com/leasing.html

Old Town Plaza Office Interior is Complete

Three new works by Cotch Diaz have been installed at Old Town Plaza. These exceptional photographs represent the culmination to what has been a year of extensive building improvements. We have also relocated some of the beautiful photographs by Nikki Li at Akula Kreative to areas of the building that were a bit bare. We hope that the entirely new hallways, paint, molding and artwork have enhanced everyone's experience at Old Town Plaza.

Two of Cotch's photographs have been installed in the Building B Lobby niches. These images are a continuation of the Coronado Bay Bridge diptych installed in Building A. The third photo is installed across from suite A-101. This work delivers an incredibly powerful perspective of the Bay Bridge and its strong diagonals and rich color saturation really capture your attention.

We will be finishing the year with some improvements to the garage. Gustavo, our day porter, has been tirelessly painting P1 and P2 and the results speak for themselves. Additionally all of the garage lighting will be upgraded over the next two weeks. This upgrade will dramatically increase the lumen output of existing fixtures and reduce our overall energy consumption by seven percent, a tremendous savings.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback and we look forward to continue to make Old Town Plaza one of the premier buildings in San Diego.

Advanced Office Water Filter - Save Money, Save Your Back

Greg from Pure Water Technology of San Diego stopped by Old Town Plaza this week to tell us more about their awesome PW1R Water Filter for commercial office use.  We have been using the PW1R here in the Intermarket office for several months now and it is awesome.  Here is Greg to tell you more about the system and how putting one in your office here at Old Town Plaza will not only save you money, but also do a little good for our environment too.

Renewable Wind Power by Gamesa Energy USA - Nick Henriksen

As many of you are well aware by now, Intermarket Investment Group, LLC is constantly searching for new and innovative ways to make Old Town Plaza a vibrant and exciting microcosm of  case studies for sustainable, energy-efficient commercial office space in San Diego.  To that end, we would like to present a a guest blog post from one of our newest tenants and a valuable player in the exploding renewable energy sector - Gamesa Energy USA's Nick Henriksen.

As the U.S.-based development arm of Gamesa Corporación Tecnológica, Old Town Plaza tenant Gamesa Energy USA is responsible for the development of wind farms in the United States and Northern Baja California.  Development activities consist of all the activities associated with wind generation projects including site identification, wind measurement, obtaining the necessary permits and licenses for construction and commissioning, final sale of projects and operations & maintenance. 

As Gamesa Enegy’s parent company, Gamesa is among the world leaders in the market, having installed 18,000 MW of turbines through 2009 and maintaining 30 manufacturing facilities in Europe, the U.S., and Asia.  This commitment to locally-based manufacturing allows Gamesa to sell wind with a higher percentage of U.S.-made components than any other wind turbine manufacturer in the industry. 

Wind generation is one of the most reliable and effective forms of renewable energy and is now cost-competitive with traditional (fossil) sources of electrical generation in high-demand markets like California. 

The outlook for renewable energy growth is strong in the western U.S. and Gamesa Energy’s San Diego office is responsible for ensuring that we are all able to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels and generate more of our power here at home. 


Nick Henriksen is the Director of Development for Gamesa Energy's West Coast Division. Prior to Gamesa, Nick worked for Eurus Energy America, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Toyota Tsusho Corp.
Nick studied International Relations and Economics at The Johns Hopkins Univ. and did his undergraduate work in American History at Haverford College.  

If you would like to learn more about renewable energy, please also see another guest OTP Blog post about renewable photovoltaic (solar) by Andrew: http://www.leaseoldtown.net/2010/10/let-sun-shine-not-quite-yet-but-soon.html

From USD Business School: Does Green Real Estate payoff financially?

I recently came across this video post from the University of San Diego's Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate.  It features a USD Business School Professor discussing green real estate investing and the where green improvements fit into the commercial real estate landscape.  Overall, a good little video about the state of the green commercial office market and how tenants are placing more and more value on green, energy efficiency improvements like those featured here at Old Town Plaza.  Check it out:

New Suite For Lease - Old Town Plaza Suite B-126

Intermarket Investment Group, LLC is proud to announce that Suite B-126 will be available for lease 01 December 2010.  Suite B-126 is perfectly laid out for DOD/SPAWAR and other professional applications.  This suite can also come FULLY FURNISHED if you would like.  Click here for more information on B-126 from our website - LeaseOldTown.com.  

Schedule a tour of B-126 today by calling Matt or Justin at 619-692-0802.  Our office is on-site, so we can tour on short notice without any problem.

Check out the video tour on YouTube.

Meg Whitman Visits Old Town Plaza

California Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Meg Whitman visited her campaign office here at Old Town Plaza yesterday to rally the troops just hours before the big election day. 

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-beat/Next-Stop-San-Diego-106461638.html
http://www.10news.com/news/25540296/detail.html

Awesome PBS NOVA Special: The Big Energy Gamble

In my endless search for more information and an additional competitive advantage in the commercial real estate business here in San Diego, I came across this fantastic NOVA Special called The Big Energy Gamble.  NOVA examines the energy situation we have here in the Sunshine State and the United States as a whole.  In particular, it highlights how environmental regulation is it's own worst enemy...

Enjoy!

http://video.pbs.org/video/1051958162/

To learn more about the energy efficiency and environmental upgrades we have implemented here at Old Town Plaza, check out the OTP Goes Green page on our website:

http://www.leaseoldtown.com/otp_goesgreen.html

Don't forget to help Old Town Plaza, one of San Diego's most environmentally friendly commercial office buildings, reach 2000 Friends on Facebook so we can throw another great (and FREE) Tenant Lunch Event here in the Courtyard!  To find out more, check out this earlier post from the OTP Blog:


http://www.leaseoldtown.net/2010/10/help-otp-get-to-1000-friends-on.html

New Tenant at Old Town Plaza

You may have seen a new crew populating the hallways and garage of Old Town Plaza. They are a friendly group with big grins plastered on their faces and peals of laughter floating after them. Normally dressed in jeans and tees, flip-flops or tennis shoes, this casually dressed team is anything but casual when it comes to internet marketing. Specializing in Internet Marketing Business Opportunities and the more traditional business to business marketing, You Everywhere Now, LLC. has become the mantra for all who have played a role in the success of this business.

When recently asked Why the company does what it does, Mars Allen Burden, the main pack leader responded, "We do what we do to remove obstacles that hinder us from building relationships."

Specifically, the group in A-186 are innovators of online products that help individuals and businesses make money. Whether it's to increase visibility and generate leads on the web through videos, which they shoot and edit in house, or to help thousands of people start their own online businesses, this team clearly operates as a well-oiled machine.

If you're interested in learning more about how they can help you generate leads and gain visibility on the major search engines, you should call Jonathan C at (949) 278-9578 and schedule a time to come and meet the team that gets You, Everywhere, Now.

Commercial Office Storage Space Available

Do you have rows of banker's boxes lined up in your office that are taking up valuable real estate? Old office furniture that you will need later but not right now?

We have the solution: on-site storage lockers available to tenants of Old Town Plaza. Conveniently located in P2 Storage, our Storage Lockers range in size from 72-500 square feet and all lease on a month-to-month basis for $1.00 per square foot.

Call today to reserve your P2 Storage Locker or click here to fill out the request form:

http://www.leaseoldtown.com/leasing.html

Guest Post - Can Business School Teach Ethics?

Greetings from Palo Alto. My name is Chris O’Riordan, and I’m honored to write this guest post for the Old Town Plaza blog.

Can business school students be taught ethics?

I am a student finishing up my last year of business school at Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), and a topic that’s been top of mind among my classmates over the last few years is ethics. The after-effects of the greatest financial crisis in a generation are still reverberating throughout the economy, and the blame for the crisis does not fall solely on perverse incentives legislated by Washington, irrational exuberance by the American homebuyer, and faulty mathematical models of risk deployed by regulators, banks, and credit-rating agencies. Moral and ethical lapses by agents across the spectrum – from mortgage brokers and lenders to top-level CEOs, many of them with MBAs – have played a significant role in the crisis. In fact, many have blamed MBA programs for over-emphasizing the profit motive and churning out managers with little sense for the greater good. So what roles do graduate business institutions play in instilling ethics in their students? I’ll talk briefly about Stanford’s approach and leave you with my thoughts.

Stanford provides tools, but little else

Stanford GSB was among the first MBA programs to emphasize ethics in its curriculum, and this emphasis plays out in several ways over the course of the two year program. First, in a required course entitled Ethics in Management, I was taught ethical frameworks like Mill and Bentham’s Utilitarianism (actions should broadly maximize utility) and John Rawls’s Theory of Justice (act so as to maximize the prospects of the least well-off).  My classmates and I then had the opportunity to apply these frameworks to actual business cases. No one framework was deemed the “right” framework to work with; rather, students were encouraged to use whichever one fit most closely with his personal values.

Next, in a course entitled Critical Analytical Thinking, students were tasked with answering questions such as: “should Google do business in China?” On the one hand, capturing the Chinese search market would mean bumper returns for Google’s shareholders. On the other, Google’s motto is “do no evil” and in order for Google to operate in China it had to censor its search results in accordance with the Chinese government’s directives. Again, the emphasis was not on finding the right answer, but on getting there in a well-reasoned and analytically rigorous fashion.

Finally, I am currently taking an elective class called Real Life Ethics where real business cases are presented by the CEOs who lived through them, and students reason through different ethical approaches. The cases are usually ambiguous enough where there is more than one “right” answer, and the two big takeaways thus far have been: 1) often times you need to trust your gut; and 2) think about how would you feel if the action you are considering was published on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

The answer lies closer to home

Tools and frameworks are useful, to be sure, and thinking through how I’d approach challenging business decisions has been a worthwhile exercise. However, I’m not sure how much these tools have actually changed the way I or my classmates would act in a given situation. In fact, I’m left with more of a feeling that many people use frameworks to rationalize the way they were already prone to act. I have no doubt that Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO of Countrywide Financial, could come up with a list as long as your arm to explain away his actions during the run up to the financial crisis (he’s providing people with access to the American dream, jobs for his employees, etc.). Furthermore, I highly doubt that had Mr. Mozilo attended the GSB and taken the classes on ethics mentioned above he would have acted any more ethically.

In retrospect, it was foolish of me to expect business school to be any sort of ethical training ground, and I’m not sure that I’d want it to be. My ethical “framework” has been shaped by years of influence from my parents, friends, and church, and my classmates have experiences of their own that have formed their worldviews. The home and community is the true ethical training ground, and I’d rather see an academic institution reward good ethics through its admissions process (as far as that’s possible) than try to inculcate its students with its desired ethical framework. In a world where “success at any cost” is often rewarded lavishly, this would be a positive step toward pushing more ethical people toward leadership positions.

Chris O’Riordan spent four years playing professional baseball with the Texas Rangers and San Diego Padres before joining Intermarket Investment Group in San Diego. He then worked in Grant Thornton’s Forensic Accounting and Litigation Services team in Phoenix, AZ before enrolling at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Chris will be joining McKinsey & Company after graduating from business school in June 2011.

AVAILABLE - La Jolla Village Condo for Rent

This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone looking for a truly unique place to live.  Check it out now - this one will not be around for long:

http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/apa/2015443964.html

If you've been to La Jolla Village, you know why this is a rare find!
 

DISCLAIMER: This is not a property owned or operated by Intermarket Investment Group, LLC, it's subsidiaries or affiliates in any capacity.  We make no representations or warranties, express or implied, to this property.  This is strictly a reference post.

Help OTP get to 2000 Friends on Facebook and we'll throw another party!

Get OTP to 2000 Facebook Friends and get an OTP Party!

Intermarket Investment Group, LLC is proud to announce our FACEBOOK CHALLENGE: get Old Town Plaza's Facebook Page to 2000 friends by 31 December 2010 and we will throw another tenant lunch party!

We think this should be pretty easy with just about 200+ people working here, each tenant only needs to get ten friends to sign up:)






Check out OTP's Facebook Page HERE, get your friends to become Fans of OTP and help us throw you another party!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/San-Diego-CA/Old-Town-Plaza/171195512964


To find out more about leasing commercial office space at Old Town's Greenest Office Building, check out our website at www.LeaseOldTown.com or click HERE.  Our office can also be reached by calling 619-692-0802.

Let the sun shine? Not quite yet, but soon…

By Andrew

I’m writing today as a guest blogger for Old Town Plaza to provide some musings about how clean energy technologies may, or may not, be beneficial for commercial real estate.  Before I go into my spiel I feel I should provide a brief background about myself.  For the past three years I’ve worked for a company focused on funding venture capital/growth equity opportunities in the clean energy space.  During that time, we’ve looked at hundreds of deals, making over a dozen investments in cleantech subsectors like solar, biofuels, wind, etc.  While there are a multitude of cleantech options for commercial real estate, I’m going to narrow the focus to solar today.

Ok, so I said I was going to focus on solar, but I feel the need to stress that the easiest way to become “greener” is to curb energy/water usage.  This costs you ZERO dollars and takes very little effort.  Simple steps like shutting down office computers when you leave for the night, making sure all the lights are off when you leave the office, fixing leaky faucets, setting the thermostat a few degrees higher in summer or a few degrees lower in winter, etc, can result in big savings over time.  The act of conservation is by far the most cost effective way to reduce energy bills.  Ok, now on to solar.

Solar

While there are a number of different sub-segments in the solar industry, the most well-known is the solar photovoltaic (“PV”) sub-segment.  In Solar PV, the industry primarily consists of crystalline silicon (“c-Si”), thin-film silicon (amorphous silicon, or “a-Si”) and thin-film non-silicon (which is dominated by cadmium-telluride-solar-panel-maker First Solar [NASDAQ: FSLR]).  I’m not going to describe the differences in each panel type in the blog—that’ll take up too much space and you can get a better explanation through Wikipedia here (c-Si), here (a-Si), and here (“CdTe”).  The basic differences that buyers would care about are in the efficiency and the cost of each system.  Crystalline silicon is currently the most efficient option, with thin-film non silicon and thin-film silicon coming in second and third, respectively.  CdTe is generally recognized as the cheapest option and c-Si is the most expensive (a-Si falls somewhere in between, but closer to the CdTe price point).  There are benefits to each type of technology depending on your location and the size of your property(ies).  

What factors do you look at when looking at solar?

Every situation is unique.  Factors that will influence your decision include available rooftop space, solar irradiance in your area (how much sunlight hits that part of the country), any shading of the roof, how much you want to spend on the system, how much energy use your trying to offset, what is the weight bearing ability of your rooftop, etc.  I’d say, on average, crystalline silicon would be the best choice for commercial real estate applications, especially in California.  Why you might ask?  It’s relatively simple; the square footage of your rooftop is finite and you want the most bang for your buck.  Since crystalline silicon is the most efficient option, you can get the highest energy output per square foot. 

Another big factor that will influence your decision is the cost.  Thin-film modules are typically the lowest cost option available for you, and if you’re operating with a tight budget, it may make financial sense to go with a thin-film option.  However, before you set your sights on something that has the lowest cost per watt (the cost of the panel divided by its rated energy output – a $1000 module that has 250w of output would be $4/w), be aware that there is another, possibly more important factor when buying a solar system as the upfront cost does not tell the whole story.  When you buy a solar system, you’re investing in something that is going to provide you with “free” electricity for 20-25 years (even more with proper maintenance).  As this asset is providing returns in the form of offsetting your electricity bill, you also want to be aware of the levelized cost of electricity (“LCOE”) that a system would provide you over its lifetime.  The LCOE is used to approximate how much each kilowatt-hour (“kWh”) of electricity your system produces costs you, providing you a reference point to compare to your current utility bill electricity cost (you can find a more detailed description of the LCOE calculation in this PDF).  While a thin-film module may have a lower upfront installed cost, its lower efficiency, over a 20-25 year lifetime may mean that its LCOE is actually higher than a c-Si module.

A third area you’ll want to look at is the inverter choice.  Inverters are what convert the electricity produced by the solar cells into electricity that is usable by your building.  There are central inverters, where all the electricity from the solar panels is funneled to one main inverter, and there are microinverters, where each panel has its own inverter.  With a central inverter, the solar panels are connected in series; and thus, the weakest panel sets the output for the entire system.  For example, if you have a cloud  covering one panel and it’s only producing 50% of its expected output, your whole system is going to be dragged down to the output of that panel.  With microinverters, you avoid this problem as the other panels will remain at full output since they are not connected in a series.  This benefit comes at a price though, as microinverters, on a system-wide level, are more expensive than central inverters.  Again, every situation is unique, if you’re located in the desert and cloud cover is rarely an issue, central inverters are the way to go.  If you’re located in a spot where there can be significant cloud cover, or you have trees shading part of the rooftop, microinverters are probably a better option.  When you’re judging what would be best for your situation, talk to a local solar installer and see if they can provide any insight.

My thoughts on solar’s place in commercial real estate.

I would say that solar is still a bit too expensive for the average commercial user at this point in time, even after the federal and state incentives.  Again, this is on a case by case basis, and there a number of benefits that solar can provide that I did not discuss, but may be applicable to your situation (like keeping the lights on during the day if the utility power is cut).  Even though it may be too expensive today, the industry is trending in the right direction for consumers, with installed costs dropping in half over the past three years.  With a plethora of new capacity coming online in China, the solar industry is rapidly becoming commoditized, and it will only be a matter of time, measured in months, not years, before solar is competitive with retail electricity prices in many markets.  My suggestion is to start investigating the solar option now, get quotes from installers, and see where prices head over the next year.  By this time next year, you may be the proud owner of a solar energy system that provides a cheaper source of electricity than utilities.

Commuting Options for Old Town Plaza

In the last few weeks, I have had a number of inquiries about various options for commuting to Old Town Plaza.  This is great news because we do have so many options for commuting here it's really amazing.

1. COASTER/San Diego Trolley - arguably the best option for getting to Old Town Plaza if you live along the Coast/I-5 Corridor anywhere south of Oceanside.  Personally, I live in Carmel Valley and take the COASTER frequently from the Sorrento Valley Station.  The total commute time for me, door-to-door is about 31 minutes - 21 of those minutes are used on the actual train ride itself.

As for the San Diego Trolley, this is an excellent option if you live in Downtown, Mission Valley, East County or Santee.

Both the San Diego Trolley and the COASTER stop at the Old Town Transit Center.


View Larger Map

2. Bicycle - another fantastic option.  Personally, I use this option once a week or so.  When riding a bike, you have the option of riding it to a COASTER train or San Diego Trolley and then riding your bike from Old Town Transit Center to Old Town Plaza.  For our resident hard-chargers, you can always ride all the way in!  We have a bike rack secured behind the gates of the P1 Parking Garage near the Building A elevator landing.

3. Scooter - arguably the best option for those customers of ours who live in any of the great urban neighborhoods located close to Old Town Plaza.  North Park, South Park, Mission Hills, Hillcrest, Banker's Hill, Little Italy, Downtown, Mission Valley and Pt. Loma.  Matt bought a Vespa for his commute to Mission Hills.  Between the fuel economy (85 mpg), acquisition cost ($4500 MSRP) and ease of storage/parking, the scooter has no rival in terms of utility and efficiency.

4. Ride Share/Carpool - traditionally a fantastic option if you live near other co-workers in your office who have similar schedules.  However, we all know how likely that is...

5. Car - well, this doesn't really need an explanation.

Using Life Cycle Analysis to Improve Return on Investment (ROI)

Old Town Plaza - San Diego Commercial Office Space

If you were to glance at the Old Town Plaza blog and see posts like "Disposable Plastics" or "The Plague of Bottled Water," you might think that Intermarket Investment Group is just some crazy environmental group who found a company and platform to carry their message.

This could not be farther from the truth.

 In addition to a variety of other reasons, Intermarket's environmentally responsible change in mission came from one simple business metric: by increasing the life cycle of all the components required to run a company that owns and operates commercial office space, you can directly cut expenses and thereby increase profitability.  As any good businessman knows, reducing expenses is actually far more potent than simply increasing sales.

In the case of running Intermarket, we have found that reducing expenses is actually far more valuable than increasing sales because in the commercial real estate business, where inventory is predefined (we cannot just increase the number of shifts or outsource additional production to another factory to increase output like a consumer products company can), increasing sales is sometimes not even an option.  When our portfolio is fully leased, we cannot simply build another building in a month or two to increase inventory and subsequently increase sales.  Increasing inventory in commercial real estate takes years (or sometimes just a few quarters if you go the acquisition route - but that assumes you can even find a quality asset in which you can invest).

Old Town's Greenest Office Space - Old Town Plaza

That leaves us with reducing expenses.  By reducing expenses, we are directly increasing the free cash flow and subsequent profitability of a given property.  In turn, this also helps us to deliver more competitive rates either by lowering our rates while maintaining our product offering, keeping our existing rates and improving our product offering or increasing our rates slightly to deliver game-changing improvements to our buildings.  In theory, if our competitors have not reduced expenses at the same time and all of us are impacted by the same economic factors in the sub-market (Old Town/5th Avenue in San Diego), then this disparity will give us a competitive advantage in our space.  No matter what option we choose, reductions in expenses directly benefit our customers every time, all the time.

One good example of life cycle enhancement and augmentation is Solar Reflective Window Film.  We could replace all of our windows here at Old Town Plaza with the latest, most advanced dual-pane, Argon-gas, low-e windows on the market.  However, that would not only be cost-prohibitive, but it would also generate an inordinate amount of landfill waste prematurely because the existing windows have plenty of usable service life in them.  Instead, we chose to augment the existing windows with Solar Reflective Window Film with great results.  The film reflects more than 70% of the incoming solar radiation from the sun away from the building.  In turn, this reduces the heat load on the building and the subsequent HVAC cooling requirements which lowers our electricity consumption.  Keeping power consumption to a minimum reduces costs for our end-users.

While not a direct life cycle analysis project, our most recent water feature improvement (conversion of the courtyard fountain to a planter featuring plants native to the San Diego region), completed earlier this year, provides us another good example of how environmentally responsible investment can lead to improved profitability and better product offerings.

Fountain replaced by native plants

The conversion project reduced our water consumption 40% per month, on average.  Simultaneously, the City of San Diego is in the middle of a series of 20% annual rate hikes which started a few years ago.  Had we opted to do nothing, Old Town Plaza would have used the same amount of water running the fountain, but we would have been paying 20% more for the water each year (same level of consumption).  Instead, by investing in an environmentally responsible feature like native planters, we significantly reduced the impact of the unavoidable 20% rate hike that we were facing from the City of San Diego by greatly reducing consumption.  This netted our tenants direct insulation (not 100%) from cost increases in utilities.

In short, we are not "environmentalists" or anything close to it.  We are a small business that has found new meaning in the old adage that "less is more."  Intermarket does more with less - it is our trademark.


These are just a couple of ways that Old Town Plaza continues to set itself apart from the competition in the Old Town/5th Avenue commercial real estate sub-market of San Diego.  Located just one block off of the Interstate 5 Freeway, Old Town Plaza is the premier location for companies looking for superior value, unrivaled location to I-5 and I-8, close proximity to San Diego International Airport and walking distance to SPAWAR - all wrapped in an environmentally responsible and efficient package.  Click here to take a Video Tour of Old Town Plaza right now, check out our Video Tour on our website or contact our office today for a personal tour of our property. 

To view our available listings, click here:
http://www.leaseoldtown.com/leasing.html

Save 50% on Your Monthly Water Bill with a $5 Bucket

Water is a big problem for us today - not only here in sunny San Diego, CA, but the world at large.  The dwindling stock of fresh water supplies is no secret to anyone who has picked up a Wall Street Journal within the last three years.  We have discussed water at length here given that the City of San Diego approved major annual rates hikes for water supplies for the next few years.

To that end, here is another little step each of us can do to save more water than we probably thought: recover and save the excess water running from your shower while you wait for the water to get hot.  You will be absolutely amazed at how much water is wasted while we wait for our water to get hot - even if you do have a hot water pump in your house or an instant hot water heater.

This savings is created by the fact that there is actually quite a bit of water just sitting in your pipes in between your shower head and the water source.  Doesn't sound like much water, right?  That is what I thought too.

Five gallon bucket = BIG $$$ savings on water bill

I started running this experiment in my own home a few months ago.  I bought a simple five gallon bucket from Ace Hardware and put it under my shower head where it collected excess water while I waited for the shower to heat up.  It is worth noting that all of my showers are fitted with SDG&E supplied Energy Saver (low-flow) Shower heads, so wasted water is already kept to a minimum.  The shower I used for this experiment is also located just ten feet from the water heater.  I was trying to use the most efficient setup possible to see what a minimum savings/efficiency threshold would look like.

After just one week I found that I was saving five gallons every two days taking just one shower a day from the shower just ten feet from the water heater and outfitted with a high-efficiency shower head.  Wow.  I had so much excess water that I began to dump my excess shower water into a large spare trash can.  I filled the large trash can in a little under three weeks.  I now use this water to irrigate my yard.  I have completely shutdown my backyard irrigation system and gone to just using a simple backpack-style hand pump sprayer (similar to one you would use for insecticide).

My water bill was cut in half.  That's right - a 50% reduction in water consumption and no adverse consequences to show for it.  If anything, I found my yard was getting TOO MUCH water using just the shower excess (my backyard is well shaded) and I have now started to use the water in the front yard too, but there is not enough water savings to completely replace irrigation in the front yard, unfortunately.


Is this a particularly big deal in the scheme of things?  No, not at all.  But you might be able to save yourself 50% per month on your water bill - especially if you have a family or a large house.  Now I would say that is something worth noting.

These same types of practices are applied everyday here at Old Town Plaza - Old Town's Greenest Commercial Office Building.  To find out more about what we are doing at Old Town Plaza to reduce our environmental impact or about how you can get into the premier commercial office space in Old Town, check out our website at www.LeaseOldTown.com or call our office to schedule a tour.  Our available listings can be found here: http://www.leaseoldtown.com/leasing.html

Space is limited and going fast, so call today!

New Ad Campaign - Farmers Insurance Agency

Check out this new ad campaign for Old Town Plaza's very own Farmer's Insurance Agency featuring Jasmine Guerrero and Brent McKiernan:


http://www.1888lowermy.com/JasmineGuerreroAgency

The ads will run on Fox 5 San Diego for one year starting tomorrow.

Our Garbage – what is it and where does it go?

A big part of our mission here at Intermarket is reducing costs for our customers by reducing superfluous consumption. We control CAMs by reducing energy waste and using our building systems more efficiently. We reduce our carbon footprint by reducing water deliveries and going to filtration systems. We reduce TI costs by recycling our doors. We reduce administrative expenses by printing on both sides of the paper here in our office and recycling old paper from old files that we don't need anymore. These efficiencies are passed on directly to our tenants in the form of property improvement projects, lower operating costs and more competitive lease rates which deliver the best overall value in our sub-market.


I recently learned about how this can be done on a much larger scale...with garbage. Literally.


Like most people, I rarely gave any thought whatsoever to the waste I produced everyday. In fact, in 90% of my daily activity, I often didn’t know that I was producing waste at all. For example, we often get our groceries bagged in plastic or paper bags only to throw them away or use them for trash for something else like food waste. This trend seems to be bucking, however, as we see more and more reusable grocery bags everyday. In the office, simply taking paper that has been printed on one side and recycling it through the printer to print on the other side will literally cut your paper consumption in half.


Trash does have an upside though. Every year, we generate more than 250 million tons of garbage here in the US. This waste helps to fuel (literally and figuratively) a $52 billion/year industry. This trash is trucked off to landfills which have proven to be modern engineering marvels in and of themselves. The decomposing garbage creates Methane and Lechate gas. This gas is harvested using gas wells in the landfill. The methane gas is then burned to create steam and spine turbines to generate electricity. At the BMW Plant in South Carolina, the entire factory is powered by a Waste Management Landfill producing methane gas for steam turbines. The plant is literally powered by trash.1


The largest landfills, which cost over $1 million/acre to construct, can produce enough gas to power over one million homes per year! This saves us about 13 million barrels of oil per year.2


So, the next time you go to hit the print button, I would encourage you to think PDF first. We have to start somewhere, but every little bit helps.


For a detailed look at our trash problems and how we can do our part to reduce waste in general, check out this CNBC Special Report called “TRASH INC – THE SECRET LIFE OF GARBAGE.”


Citations and References:



1 “Trash Inc. – The Secret Life of Garbage” CNBC, 2010: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38830389

2 “Trash Inc. – The Secret Life of Garbage” CNBC, 2010: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38830389

"Disposable" Plastics

Last Saturday, as part of their "Green Screen Series," the San Diego Film Festival featured the film Bag It. This documentary clearly, and often humorously, outlines the sheer stupidity of single-use plastic products. Following the story of the plastic bag exposes the tremendous environmental and societal impact of disposable plastics. The film poses a simple question: Why are we using a highly durable material made from a finite resource (petroleum) for products that are discarded in a matter of minutes and take centuries to decompose? The statistics are startling. The United States is currently consuming approximately 1 million single use plastic bags per MINUTE!


Bag It Intro from Suzan Beraza on Vimeo.

Though the scale of this problem appears daunting, it is also a problem that everyone can help solve. The Bag It website offers a wealth of tips to make life with less plastic possible. The film makers are trying to distribute Bag It through more mainstream channels. Until that time please visit their website and pass along this information.

Tenant Lunch Hosted by Cox Business - October 22, 2010

Owner/Operator - OTP

In conjunction with Anthony Perez and Macie Rookus at Cox Business Services, we are pleased to announce that we will be holding another tenant-lunch event on October 22, 2010 from 1130-1330 in the Courtyard here at Old Town Plaza.  The event is being sponsored by Cox Business Services who will also be providing lunch for everyone.  Over the last few months, we have been working closely with Anthony and his team from Cox Business to ensure that Old Town Plaza has the latest in available communications infrastructure desired by our customers.  This project is part of our continuing effort to keep Old Town Plaza in the lead as the premier commercial office building here in the Old Town sub-market.

Cox Business at Old Town Plaza

Anthony and his team from Cox Business Services will be on-site throughout the event to answer any questions you might have about ways Cox can help your business with voice and data solutions.  Cox Business Services will also have Technicians on-site for existing Cox Business Customers who have issues or questions with existing systems.  The Techs will be available for trouble-shooting as well.

RSVP's are not necessary for this event.  We hope that this will be a beneficial event for all of our valued customers here at Old Town Plaza.  See you then!

Commercial Real Estate Customer Testimonial: Doug Dickerson from KW Advisors

We recently did a deal with Doug Dickerson from KW Advisors and it was quite possibly the smoothest, most professional deal Matt and I have ever done.  This was due in no small part to Doug Dickerson of KW Advisors.  His client, Traffic Geyser, LLC, took delivery of a commercial office suite here at Old Town Plaza this past weekend.  Here is what Mr. Dickerson had to say about his experience here at Old Town Plaza.  We believe the note speaks for itself (published here at OTP's LeaseOldTown.net with permission from Mr. Dickerson):

Matt & Justin,

I hope things are going well over at OTP as you near full occupancy.

In addition, I would like to say that this was one of the more enjoyable deals that I have worked on. The response times, good will, and professionalism were all top notch.

Thanks,


Doug Dickerson | Associate Director

KW Commercial  | Corporate Advisory Services

12265 El Camino Real, Suite 180 | San Diego, CA 92130

858.243.2608 - Cell | 858.436.8303 - Office

Lic. #01824183

Old Town Plaza Welcomes Gamesa Energy USA, LLC!

This month we are pleased to announce the move-in of Gamesa Energy USA, LLC to Old Town Plaza.  Gamesa Energy USA, LLC is a global innovator and leading manufacturer of wind turbines in the renewable energy sector.  They are also a significant developer of wind power generation facilities.  Gamesa needed to relocate their West Coast Development offices to a suitable commercial office building in San Diego from Austin, TX on extremely short notice and Old Town Plaza made it happen! 

Welcome Gamesa Energy USA, LLC!

Old Town Plaza is 98% LEASED!

At the beginning of August 2010, Old Town Plaza was 83% leased, but today we are pleased to announce that Old Town Plaza is now 98% leased!  About two months ago, we decided to make some changes to our commercial real estate leasing strategy and we have been quite pleased with the results.   

San Diego Commercial Office Space - LeaseOldTown.com

This is great news for all of our valued commercial office customers here at Old Town Plaza.  With nearly maximum occupancy and strong leasing velocity in support, we will be able to continue our significant improvement programs and try to make our customer experience here at Old Town Plaza better than ever for out fantastic customers! 

We would like to take this opportunity to strongly encourage our existing customers to renew/expand early so we can make sure we get the best possible arrangements in place which suit the needs of your business.

Thank you to all of our special customers who have made this possible - we couldn't do it without you all!

Tenant Appreciation Lunch - Tickets are ready for pick-up

Good Afternoon - our Second Tenant Appreciation Lunch of 2010 for Old Town Plaza is just around the corner and all RSVP's have been received.  We do apologize, but no additional RSVP's can be added at this point.

Please stop by our office BEFORE CLOSE OF BUSINESS on Thursday 23SEP 2010 to pick up your tickets.  You will not be able to get lunch without a ticket.

Please do not hesitate to contact our office if you have any questions.

See you Friday!

About the San Diego Commercial Office Building Old Town Plaza

Downtown San Diego lobby artwork at Old Town Plaza

Strategically positioned as one of San Diego's most conveniently located commercial office space developments, Old Town Plaza is a perfect commercial office building headquarters.  In addition to its unbeatable location, Old Town Plaza is the greenest office space in the Old Town/Pt. Loma/Sports Arena sub-market of San Diego.  Professionally owned and operated on-site by Intermarket Investment Group, LLC, Old Town Plaza is the premier commercial office development in San Diego's famed Old Town Historic District and provides unique and unrivaled access to SPAWAR SSC Pacific, Downtown San Diego and San Diego International Airport (SAN).  For more information on how you can join up with the hottest commercial office space in Old Town, call Justin or Matthew at 619-692-0802 or visit www.LeaseOldTown.com for detailed leasing information.

San Diego Start-Up Success Story: Xterra Wetsuits - San Diego, CA

This afternoon I took a short respite from our normal business running commercial office space in San Diego here at Old Town Plaza and visited with Brian and Glynn from Xterra Wetsuits right here in sunny San Diego.  Xterra is the world leader in high-performance Triathalon wetsuits and has been a runaway success story over the last few years.  They are a rare bright spot in this otherwise brutal recession.  I visit with Brian and Glynn as they take us through how they got started with their small business, what makes them a successful small business, how they differentiate themselves and all that goes into making a high performance Triathalon Wetsuit.



Stay tuned to LeaseOldTown.net for more great profiles on Small Business Success Stories in San Diego.

San Diego Chargers at Kansas City Chiefs on MNF and the Chargers new stadium

This weekend I made the trip out to Kansas City to not only spend quality time with old friends, but to cheer on the Chargers as they battled the Kansas City Chiefs for the Monday Night Football Season Opening Double-Header (wow, that was a mouthful).  Here are my thoughts from the weekend:

Kansas City, MO - overall a cool city with modern flavors set against the backdrop of a traditional Mid-West town.  The people of Kansas City were so hospitable and friendly - really great people.  It reminds me why I love this country so much.  The Power & Light District provides a new take on night life and has some excellent venues with unique themes not present here in San Diego.  P&L is essentially a master-planned nightlife venue where the various bars and clubs line a two-story perimeter and surround a courtyard space complete with high-definition big screens, full audio, stage lighting and patio seating for all of the venues.  Each patron is then allowed to take their beverage from venue to venue within the Power and Light District.  Since P&L is contained on all sides by security checkpoints, the entire venue essentially serves as one large bar/club with a variety of different themed "sub-venues" contained therein.  An excellent concept that I would like to see duplicated elsewhere.

Our interview with Larry Himmel from KFMB

We also visited Arthur Bryant's BBQ for some original KC BBQ - AWESOME!  This place has played host to a large number of celebrities (they had the pictures on the wall - de rigueur for such a venue).  I opted for the chicken and sausage sandwich with the sweet BBQ sauce.  The original flavor made Arthur Bryant's famous, but I preferred the more vinegar-based sweet sauce.



The NEW Arrowhead Stadium - all weekend long, locals were telling us how lucky we were to be able to watch the first game in the new stadium.  At a cost of $375 million, the State of Missouri along with Jackson County and the Chiefs organization helped to foot the bill for the much needed improvements.  Some footage from the opening ceremony:

While this was my first football experience at Arrowhead Stadium and consequently, I have no basis for comparison, I have to say that this was a cool football stadium experience and probably worth the money.  The new fan areas in the parking lot make tailgating an even more enjoyable experience (and let me tell you, KC fans know how to tailgate) with open gravel and garden areas for tailgate seating in some of the reserved lots.  The concourse areas are expansive and make for easy fan movement around the venue.  Bathrooms are also plentiful which is a nice change of pace from other venues where you have to walk a country mile to get to a bathroom (i.e. Qualcomm Stadium).  Last but certainly not least, the Founder's Club - wow!  This was one cool club level with HDTV's everywhere, no lines for drinks or food and fantastic game viewing areas where fans can sit in a race-track style format with a table in front of them to make eating and drinking an easier and more enjoyable experience.  Great idea.

That brings me to my last point - the Chargers need a new stadium and us voters need to make that happen!  Larry Himmel from KFMB Channel 8 did a great piece on the New Stadium for the Chargers in a four part segment.  I've placed the links to that segment below.  I could go on and on here about all of the reasons why San Diego voters need to approve a new stadium for the Chargers, but I think Mr. Himmel does a fantastic job:


State of the Stadium, Part 1 - San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.com

State of the Stadium, Part 2 - San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.com


State of the Stadium, Part 3 - San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.com

State of the Stadium, Part 4 - San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.com

Old Town Plaza Welcomes UCSD's Continuing Medical Education Team

San Diego Commercial Office Space - Old Town Plaza

Intermarket Investment Group is pleased to welcome the Continuing Medical Education group from the University of California San Diego to Old Town Plaza.  The UCSD CME Team is hard at work putting the finishing touches on what will surely be a great new headquarters for the group.  Working closely with UCSD, the CME suite features an all-new, totally experimental LED drop-in replacement lighting retrofit kit for their overhead Lithonia Parabolic fixtures.

Serving as direct replacements for the T8 florescent lights normally found in the Lithonia Parabolic fixtures, the all-new LED replacements use just 22w compared to 30-35w normally consumed by a traditional T8 bulb.  Each LED tube provides 2000 lumens of light output in a directional capacity.  For UCSD CME, we selected 6500 kelvin light temperature (closest to natural day light) for optimum work output and environmental comfort.  If you would like to find out more about light temperature and how it can impact your office, check out our previous blog post "Daylight in your office."

About the San Diego Commercial Office Building Old Town Plaza

Downtown San Diego lobby artwork at Old Town Plaza

Strategically positioned as one of San Diego's most conveniently located commercial office space developments, Old Town Plaza is a great place to station your company.  In addition to its unbeatable location, Old Town Plaza is the greenest office space in the Old Town/Pt. Loma/Sports Arena sub-market of San Diego.  Professionally owned and operated on-site by Intermarket Investment Group, LLC, Old Town Plaza is the premier commercial office development in San Diego's famed Old Town Historic District and provides unique and unrivaled access to SPAWAR SSC Pacific, Downtown San Diego and San Diego International Airport (SAN).  For more information on how you can join up with the hottest office project in Old Town, call Justin or Matthew at 619-692-0802 or visit www.LeaseOldTown.com for detailed leasing information.