Our Sustainability Department is Alive and Well!
It’s been a while since we’ve update our followers on the happenings of our award-winning Sustainability Department, so we thought we’d take a moment to fill you all in. The department is alive and well, and is beginning a new project at a Denver high-rise.
That’s right! As of this week, a new water conservation project is underway at the Americana Condominium Association in Denver. Americana is a high-rise building located just east of Colorado Boulevard in central Denver. As the “Community in Focus” blog on Americana which we published earlier this year will tell you, the Association is located in an area of change within the city, as the nearby former University of Colorado Medical Center is being demolished and the site is being readied for re-development. In keeping with the modernization of the neighborhood, the Americana site is making some upgrades of its own to make building operations more efficient and cost-effective. Recent modernization efforts include repairing the boilers, upgrading the hot water system, replacing the piping insulation, and improving the outdoor landscaping. Next comes the replacement of the old and obsolete three-to-five-gallon-per-flush toilets which are common in the units and consume an amount of water which is far beyond what is needed.
This project is similar to previous water conservation projects which CAP Management has overseen the implementation of in that it is a private-public partnership between the Association and Denver Water. The water utility benefits considerably from reduced consumption at large properties and is happy to offer HOAs substantial rebates for the installation of new toilets. In fact, the cost of the toilets is little or nothing with these commercial rebates and any money spent on the project (administration, labor, etc.) is quickly recaptured by water savings. This leaves the Association with new plumbing fixtures and lower water bills. What a fantastic situation!
In addition to the project at Americana, our Sustainability Department has been exploring the installation of both solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations at some of our interested homeowners associations. These are complex initiatives which require considerable financial investment. The opinion of our Chief Sustainability Officer is to bring these possibilities up at annual meetings to gauge homeowner support, given the level of exterior modification to the property they require, before implementation. If any of our readers have any anecdotes to share about how either solar panels or electric vehicle charging stations have impacted their HOA, please feel free to reach out to our Chief Sustainability Officer, Alex Bergeron, at AlexB@capmanagement.com. Thanks for reading!