Feb 22 2013
Foram Group announced today that its 600 Brickell at Brickell World Plaza office tower has received LEED® Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.
The 40-story, 600,000-square-foot mixed-use commercial tower in the heart of Miami’s financial district is the only building of its kind in Florida, and one of only a handful of its class and size in the world, to be so designated. It received the designation in the core and shell category, which applies to new construction.
LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the nation’s leading certification organization for design, construction and operation of high-performance, green buildings. The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council is committed to a sustainable future for our nation through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings.
“This is a monumental honor for us and rare for any developer,” said Loretta Cockrum, Foram’s founder, chairwoman and CEO. “We are gratified that the U.S. Green Building Council has recognized our team’s creativity in setting a new standard for environmentally sustainable Class-A office towers.”
600 Brickell was recognized by the U.S. Green building Council for its pioneering work in achieving efficiencies in energy, lighting, water and material use, as well as incorporating a variety of other sustainable strategies to reduce its carbon footprint.
“In developing 600 Brickell, Foram Group created a superior sustainable working environment by combining all the elements of a world-class office building with the sophisticated amenities of a five-star hotel. There is no building quite like it, with an unsurpassed combination of location, amenities, security and technology,” said Tracy Story, President of Management and Leasing for Foram Group.
“Every detail of this building was planned and examined before one shovel of dirt was ever turned,” said Cockrum. The $300-million eco-friendly, smart building features include central monitoring and control of air quality, temperature and lighting, resulting in a healthier, more comfortable and more secure working environment, and fully redundant electrical backup systems designed to eliminate tenants’ business interruptions and technology worries in a 24/7 world. It offers both public and secured WiFi and direct access to the world’s Internet backbone through underground, redundant fiber-optic connections linking directly to the NAP (Network Access Point) of the Americas less than one mile away. 600 Brickell is the first “Class A” office building of this magnitude to be ISO 27001 Certified, the internationally accepted benchmark for information security.
“We wanted to build something that would be as relevant 50 years from now as it is today,” added Cockrum. “We have achieved our goal.”