“Some say the greenest building is the one that already exists,” says Ralph DiNola, principal at Portland-based Green Building Services. “Yes and no.”

Working through the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification process for a handful of historical renovation projects in Portland, DiNola says oftentimes the historic preservation of a building drives decisions that are inherently very green. But working with two separate organizations with very different approaches to certification is not always easy — especially when significant tax credits are on the line.

The National Park Service, through state historic preservation offices, administers the National Register of Historic Places, which includes about 82,000 buildings and districts, according to the Park Service. Projects that are renovated according to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation — and survive the review process — receive a hefty federal historic preservation tax credit: Building owners can write off 20 percent of the hard and soft costs of preserving a historic commercial building.

To top it off, historic building owners also attempting to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards are often eligible for state and federal tax credits, for either energy conservation, on-site renewable energy generation or both.

“A building speaks to its time,” says DiNola, who worked with the design team of the Gerding Theater at the Armory Building in Portland, the first historical building to achieve a LEED Platinum rating. Historic renovations offer an opportunity to preserve history while introducing more efficient, modern technology, he says. “It allows you to make up for mistakes made in the past.”   

The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation are not as black and white as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED checklist, which awards specific actions through a point-based system.

“You would think they go together, but unfortunately we butt heads on a number of issues,” says Joy Sears, a restoration specialist at the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office. “We find that LEED gets very prescriptive … it’s very product-driven. We stress repair, and only encourage replacement when deterioration is so bad that it calls for replacement,” she adds.

The U.S. construction industry produces 136 million tons of construction and demolition waste a year, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Because historic renovations and adaptive-re-use projects utilize existing buildings, and therefore reduce demolition waste, they tend to easily score LEED points for materials and resources and indoor environmental quality.

But there are a couple of issues on which the National Park Service won’t back down, and window replacement is one of them. Replacing windows can sabotage a developer’s chances of being added to the National Register of Historic Places. As a result, historic renovation projects struggle to get points for energy, as well as atmosphere and water efficiency.

Sears stresses there are ways to improve a building’s energy performance aside from replacing windows. She points to the Mission Mill Museum, a historic woolen mill in Salem, Ore., that utilized UV-coating on its south-facing windows to cut down on heat gain in the building. Because the coating doesn’t detract from the historic character of the building, the state historic preservation office approved the upgrade, Sears says.

“It’s a game of give and take,” says Hal Ayotte of Portland-based Fletcher Farr Ayotte Architects. He is the lead principal on the green historic preservation of Portland’s White Stag Block. “You have to have a lot of experience doing it and understand where you can get your points with LEED and where you can negotiate with the historic preservation people.”

Members of the U.S. Green Building Council, the National Park Service, the American Institute of Architects and other federal agencies formed the Sustainable Preservation Coalition to find a solution that meets the needs of both the green building and the historic preservation communities. Some are proposing a federal green rating system for historic buildings that looks at the true value of embodied energy, energy efficiency, historic building systems and individual building performance improvements. Others propose creating a LEED rating system tailored to historic buildings.

Without a solid blueprint for historic building renovation in front of them, designers continue to be creative. “It’s fun,” Ayotte says. “I like it. But you have to have a real disposition for it because it’s a very disciplined approach to a building.”

Ayotte says projects as ambitious as the White Stag Block require developers that are willing to expand their budgets and a tenant that demands a green building. The White Stag Block, under Portland’s Burnside Bridge, includes the Bickel Block Building, the Skidmore Block Building and the White Stag and Hirsch-Weiss Building. Owned by Venerable Properties, the buildings totaling 143,000 square feet are the future home of the University of Oregon’s Portland campus. The university, which currently plans to occupy 75,000 feet of the block, is demanding the design team pursue a LEED Gold rating. 

The White Stag Building is designed to include a modern rooftop photovoltaic array. Because it will be hidden from view, it was approved by the historic preservation office. The construction crew will reuse old maple gymnasium floors from the university’s MacArthur Court. And all three buildings, which will include a retail store, are designed to utilize daylighting, occupancy sensors and a mix of fluorescent and LED lighting.

“Oregon and the Northwest in general are so energy-conscious and so sustainable-conscious,” Ayotte says. “The public and private sectors have figured out that it’s not only a marketing advantage because people here demand it, but it’s a good thing to do for their overhead.”