California Mixed-Use Property Wins LEED Gold

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor

Los Angeles—The Alhambra, a 45-acre mixed-use property in Alhambra, Calif., has won LEED gold certification. According to property’s owner, the Ratkovich Co., the Alhambra had one of the more complicated LEED certifications thus due to its complicated design, which includes nearly one-third of the building space underground.

The Alhambra is now one of only two LEED certified properties in the city of Alhambra and the only one to achieve certification under the LEED-EB Operations and Maintenance rating system. The Alhambra’s certification is the culmination of a series of projects completed over the past few years, including include the installation of five Bloom Energy Servers, which are a kind of distributed power generator using fuel cells. Fuel cells are devices that convert fuel into electricity through an electro-chemical process rather than combustion.

The property also recently completed its three-acre water-efficiency and conservation landscaping project, which features drought-resistant, mostly California native plants which will reduce the landscape’s water usage by 85 percent. The Alhambra boasts an Energy Star score of 93, meaning it’s in the top 8 percent of all U.S. buildings for energy efficiency.

The Ratkovich Co. tasked San Francisco-based BuildingWise to bring the building to LEED gold, along with another iconic SoCal property the company also owns, the office tower at 5900 Wilshire.  The company originally acquired the Alhambra in 1999, when it was a 45-acre former corporate campus of CF Braun Engineering.

Since then, the company has redeveloped the site to include office and retail uses, along with a parking garage. A specific plan has been approved allowing for the construction of 311 residential units (townhouses and flats) on the northeasterly portion of the site.