BUILDING FEATURES
Our building’s cutting edge features and community programming care for both people and planet.
MEASURING PERFORMANCE
FEATURES OF OUR HIGH PERFORMANCE BUILDING
WELLNESS
On average, people spend almost 90 percent of their life in buildings. Because of this, we believe in the power of buildings to improve quality of life for inhabitants. Heating and cooling methods, building materials and layouts are just a few aspects of a structure that can impact people’s mental and physical health.
Filtration: We utilize MERV 13 filters with some of highest filtration media outside of hospitals or cleanrooms.
Paints: We exclusively use low or no-voc paints.
ATP Testing: We validate cleanliness of a surfaces using ATP (adenosine triphosphate) testing, which measures actively growing microorganisms on surfaces.
Fresh, Clean Air: We continually verify air quality from the building and in our large conference rooms. We annually monitor tenant spaces for performance and exceed local and global averages by 25 and 50 percent, respectively.
Thoughtful Tenancy: Half of our building’s square footage is common space and half of our suites are collaborative work suites occupied by an average of five organizations each.
Tenant Events: We hold frequent community events for our tenants, including happy hours and bimonthly fikas, a traditional Swedish coffee break to “slow down.”
Intentional Design: The layout of our building encourages people to move throughout their day to access shared conference rooms, kitchens and printers.
Information Sharing: We provide multiple ways to share and access information, including curating a community listserv, newsletters and information boards.
In-House Choices: Our Serendipity Coffee Bar provides healthy and delicious drink and food options that can accommodate all dietary preferences.
Event Food Selections: Our events promote healthy options with low fat and low sugar alternatives while also providing vegetarian and vegan options.
Encourage Stair Usage: We hold stair competitions during Earth Week to promote the use of stairs as opposed to our elevator for energy conservation and health promotion measures.
Braille Signage: We have signage in Braille installed in multiple areas including conference rooms, kitchens and the typical areas like restrooms, elevator and stairwells.
Restrooms for All: We have restrooms designated for men and women as well as two dedicated all-gender restrooms.
Yoga Classes: We host monthly yoga classes for our tenants and members of the public.
Wellness Room: We provide a private space in the building that tenants can reserve in advance or pop in for meditating, napping, nursing or other needs.
Safety and wellness are top priorities at The Alliance Center. Our cleaning standards, air quality management and occupant health programs follow best practices and have passed rigorous third party verifications. We’ve been LEED Certified for years and in 2021 became one of the first in the nation to earn the WELL Health-Safety Rating. These accomplishments demonstrate our ongoing dedication to your wellbeing.
Benchmarking Ordinance: The Alliance Center is ranked 14th in energy performance for office buildings in Denver and second for the Lower Downtown neighborhood. The only building performing better than ours in LoDo was built in 2015 as compared to our 1908 structure.
Energy Star: Energy Star is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency voluntary program that helps businesses and individuals save money and protect our climate through superior energy efficiency. Our Energy Star score is 92 currently, which means we use less energy than 92 percent of our peers.
Green Leases: We use green leases to work with our tenants to reduce our collective footprint.
Living Laboratory: We seek out projects to test and showcase innovative technologies to the wider market.
Carbon Offsets: The Alliance Center offsets what it does consume and has been carbon neutral since 2008.
ENERGY
The building sector consumes more than 70 percent of US electricity and emits nearly 40 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, the largest of any single sector. The Alliance Center has been carbon neutral since 2008, and according to Energy Star, we use less energy than 92% of our peers.
WASTE
Colorado on average has a recycling rate of 17 percent—far below the national average of 35 percent. The Center is continuously working to implement and discover ways to reduce our waste production. We currently divert over 85 percent of our waste!
Sustainable Products: Closed loop and high post-consumer recycled products such as Interface carpeting are a priority.
Contractual Agreements: Office space and event customer legal agreements include both restrictions and incentives to reduce waste.
Zero Waste Pop-Ups: Homefill, a local bulk retail store, hosts events in our lobby for tenants to purchase sustainable products and bulk in reusable containers. Better World Company, a zero waste company, hosts events in our lobby for tenants to fill reusable containers with dish soaps, body wash, shampoo and other materials.
Reducing Event Food Waste: Food left over from events is made available to our tenants to prevent it from going to waste. Some of the food is weighed as part of the EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge.
Reusables: The Alliance Center provides reusable dishes and utensils for tenants to use for meals at work.
Encourage Alternative Options: We partner with caterers who can provide reusable or compostable dishes and utensils during our hundreds of annual events.
Dishware and Utensils: We require reusable or compostable dishware and utensils for events as well as for our in-house coffee vendor.
Compost: Our building supports a local, woman-owned business called Wompost for our compost pick up. This amazing business also works to educate the community and provide compost services where they otherwise wouldn’t exist.
The Alliance Center’s Hard to Recycle Station takes items that aren’t normally accepted in municipal recycling streams such as lightbulbs, pet food bags and more. Located on the first floor of our building, this community resource is just one of our ongoing efforts to prevent waste from going to the landfill!
Transportation Options: Our location provides a variety of options as is evident by our walk, transit and bike scores.
Bike Parking: We provide several secure bike racks and dedicated parking lot space for bikes. We also worked with the city to convert an additional street parking space for bike commuters to encourage less driving.
Bike Tools and Air Pump: We offer resources for tenants and community members to repair damaged bicycles or tires.
Available Showers: Showers and storage lockers are available to support walk and bike commuters.
Carshare: A Colorado carshare vehicle is available in our parking lot.
DC Electric Vehicle Fast Charger: We installed the first DC electric vehicle fast charger in Lower Downtown, which is capable of fully charging most electric vehicles in one hour.
Parking Pricing: These prices are intentionally set to ensure parking is used out of necessity and not convenience. For our reserved parking spaces, we prioritize organizations sharing the space and have reverse volume pricing whereby organizations pay an increased rate for additional parking spaces.
TRANSPORTATION
The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions of all human activities. The Center works to reduce emissions by encouraging alternate transit options and lower emission vehicles.
WATER
Colorado is a headwater state and supplies water to 17 other states. However, we have used more of this resource than rivers can supply. The Center strives to conserve water in innovative ways to do our part in reducing our consumption of this precious resource.
Low-Flow Installations: Our building utilizes waterless urinals, low flow faucets and showers, high efficient pressure assist toilets and drip irrigation. This results in 5.7 gallons per square foot annual consumption.
On-Site Compressors: These are used to cool the building during the warm summer months—as opposed to a cooling tower, which requires a continual feed of water.
Domestic Hot Water Heaters: The utilization of gas has been eliminated from the entire building through heating via electricity.
BUILDING AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS
