2006
Martin Melaver, CEO

By Martin Melaver Q2a 2006

Not too long ago, our COO Colin Coyne and I were making a pitch to do a build-to-suit office building for an old-line, well-established law firm.
Surprising enough was the fact that we were there at the table in the first place.  After all, the law firm had been in its current digs for a long time and seemed destined to stay put.  Law firms, after all, are not exactly known for making changes quickly or dramatically.

What was truly surprising, however, was that the firm’s real estate committee actually seemed interested in working in a LEED building.  We had spent time educating them about what this meant, emphasizing the fact that a high-performance building was essentially oriented toward the tenant and not toward the conventional dictates of the building trade.  We assured the partners that they would not be viewed as Birkenstock-wearing, granola crunching softies.  We developed a business-case study projecting that the firm would actually gain about $1.50 in benefits for every $1.00 paid in rent for a LEED development.

And then came that moment of truth:  The managing partner of the firm stared at us across the table and asked the following:  “What if we wanted you to build us this new building but we didn’t want you to do it sustainably?”

Colin and I looked at each other for a while quietly.  The deal was significant for a company of our size, with a decent profit to boot..  And we both wanted to enter this new market with this prestigious tenant on board.  I smiled a bit ruefully.  Colin looked back across the table and simply said “nope.”  If the client wanted a conventional building, they had better just stay where they were or look elsewhere for another developer.

In retrospect, while I think our answer convinced this client that we were very serious about our mission, it also surprised them.  After all, the cliche we use for making firm decisions is this notion of “drawing a line in the sand,” a cliche; I’ve never really understood.  “Drawing a line in the sand” is supposed to connote firmness, creating a clear divide between what one will do and what one will not.  What an ill-gotten cliche;.  Lines in the sand, in our part of the world on the Georgia coast, last just longer than 1 business day, about 11 hours, the time it takes for a tide to recede, return again, and wash away the lines previously drawn. Everything, it is said, is negotiable.
The funny, or not-so-funny thing is this:  If we don’t start saying “No” to developing the same-old way, nature will do it for us.  It has for a long while already.  Oren Pilkey, an expert on the world’s barrier islands, writes eloquently of man’s hubris on damming rivers, build canals, mining sand, removing marshland, etc. all in a losing effort to prevent nature from running its natural course.   Or as barrier island botanist Paul Godfrey says, “Nature always bats last at the shoreline.”

P.S.  Dear reader: The law firm eventually said “No” to us, deciding to stay where they’ve always been.