Services
Green Building Project Management
Green Building Consulting
Feasibility and Market Analysis
Project Concept and Design
Project Marketing, Branding, Positioning
Financial and Legal Structures
Development Business Planing
LEED certification: Consulting, Co-ordination, and Application
Building Commissioning
Charette Facilitation
Conferences and Workshops
Consulting in Other Business and Organizational Areas Related to Sustainability
Others
Download our full list of services here.
Green Building Project Management
EcoCité Developments can manage your next green development project from start to finish. In addition to design, marketing, communication, and media skills, we have extensive expertise in sustainable business, organizational, and finance systems. Delivering this full range of services in an integrated fashion uses our broad experience to best advantage to bridge the technical and business sides of real estate development.
Green Building Consulting
EcoCité understands the complete development process – from conception to design to construction, and from feasibility to financing to sales. We are not only a private development firm; we are also a full-service consulting firm that champions the practice of sustainable building design and development. We can augment your existing strengths with the necessary skills, experience, and controls to make your project a success. Services provided can include any or all of the services listed.
The advantage of working with a consultant who has developed its own projects is that we fully understand the position of our clients – we’ve been there. We know development is a tough but rewarding business.
From the first conceptual stages of your project through the close-out, EcoCité will be your most valuable resource for making strategic business decisions and achieving the most creative, efficient, and profitable design possible within your budget.
Feasibility and market analysis
What? Where? How much should I pay? Is there a market for this? How much can I charge? What are my chances of success? These are the fundamental questions of any real estate project. Throw in questions like – do people value these green features? Will they pay more for on-site energy systems? Do potential clients understand what LEED™ is? Do they value it? Our experience in bringing new EcoCondo® concepts to market has taught us what it takes to make innovative projects work for the market. From academia to engineering, from hoteliers to building relocation, we can draw on our experience to give you unbiased and reliable market assessments and project feasibility reports that will enable you to make informed decisions to make your project a success.
Project Concept and Design
From the first back-of-the-envelope sketch to complete construction details, let us help you design your green building project. Whether it’s for a small residential in-fill project, a village centre, an eco-hotel, or a large mixed-use community, we will deliver the most cost effective, environmentally sustainable building solutions.
Achieving the maximum potential in a green building project requires a genuine collaborative effort from all participants, especially the design and building professionals. Our holistic, integrated design process — a mix of organization and inspiration — brings out the team’s most creative solutions for development challenges, and effectively guides them through the design and build exercise.
All decisions around the conceptualization of a project balance our mutual desire to make the most environmentally and socially sound design decisions for your project, while recognizing the business needs for marketability and profit.
Project Marketing, Branding, Positioning
In the emerging market for green buildings, it’s not enough just to say you’re building green. The philosophy of sustainability needs to be genuinely integrated throughout your company, as well as your project. We’ll use our experience and the latest marketing and social research to ensure that your branding strategy leverages green building’s full potential to attract clients to your project.
Financial and legal structures
Construction and real estate development are complex and risky. The legal and business structures underlying every project need to be well thought out. Innovative green development practices demand particular attention to ensure that these structures support your project’s green development strategies. We will show you how to align these elements to reduce risk and enhance your project’s long term-success. We will manage the creation of necessary contracts, condo divisions, and other documents, from concept through development to finalization.
Development business planning
We can work with you to prepare a complete business plan for your project — large or small — that will pull together our experience in project conceptualization, feasibility and market analysis, project marketing, branding and positioning, and financial and legal structures. This information will be integrated with preliminary project pro-formas, a construction finance strategy, and the appropriate supporting background research and information. The business plan can be used for internal and external planning, as well as in discussions with lenders and investors.
LEED Certification: Consulting, co-ordination and application
Including an experienced LEED™ professional early in a project that is seeking LEED certification, is the best way to maximize the benefits and minimize the cost of participating in this rating system. Without question, this is one of the more important ways to avoid unworkable and expensive design strategies, expensive additional services, or contractor change orders.
EcoCité’s LEED™ accredited professionals can take complete charge of bringing your green building through the LEED™ certification process. We will work with you to achieve the desired standard of LEED™ certification, while maintaining your required outcomes in terms of budget, quality, and schedule. We will develop a work plan to guide your design and building team, and ensure that the project earns all LEED™ points you have designed and specified. EcoCité will lead the team in the successful completion and submission of the documentation required for LEED™ certification.
Building Commissioning
Commissioning enhances building and equipment performance. The Canadian and U.S. Green Building Councils recognize the benefits that commissioning provides in green buildings, and include commissioning in the LEED™ system, not only as a way to earn credits, but also as a fundamental prerequisite for certification.
EcoCité provides complete commissioning services and reporting as an independent service, or as part of a LEED™ consultation package.
Charrette facilitation
The Charrette is an essential creative component of the integrated design process (IDP). It is a facilitated undertaking where a multidisciplinary team (including clients, business owners, the municipality, contractors and design professionals such as architects, engineers, planners and landscape architects) work together to develop key ideas and solutions for a building or project. Charrettes accelerate the education process, confirm decisions, enhance internal communications, diminish adversity, explore the nuances of organizational issues and expedite the design process.
The Charrette method is most useful early in a design exercise as it can stimulate creativity and team buy-in to the process of innovative building and community design. Charrettes can be small one-day affairs, or intense multiple-day events meant to tackle complex design challenges.
EcoCité’s experienced facilitators will organize and conduct your design charrette in an impartial and authoritative fashion, while inspiring your team to work together effectively and collaboratively from the first stages of your project.
Conferences and Workshops
When we entered the real estate development industry, we wanted to help transform an industry that was reluctant to change due to some very real, very important barriers. As developers, we’ve learned first-hand how to overcome these challenges. It is now our goal to help others do the same.
An important part of our work is education. The more people understand the concepts of sustainable development and green design, the easier it will be to implement successful design and construction projects, and create sustainable communities.
People are inspired by frank and engaging discussions of real life experiences, not by dry recitations of theoretical concepts. In our frequent talks, workshops, and seminars for a range of audiences — from seasoned professionals to eager university students — we discuss case studies of green building projects, the ins and outs of the integrated design process, the challenges of doing things differently, and the benefits of being at the front of a wave of change towards more sustainable business practices.
We would be happy to work with you to develop a customized lecture or workshop to meet your workshop or lecture needs.
Consulting in other business and organizational areas related to sustainability
As an entrepreneurial organization, we participate in a broad spectrum of business areas that connect to our experience in the built environment and our passion for sustainability.
Contact us to see if there is a good fit with your sustainable business ideas.
Others
- Integrated Design Process facilitation
- Education and training
- Research
- Curriculum development
- Developing, packaging and licensing technologies such as energy-efficiency residential retrofits
Call us at 514-803-6681 or email today so we can discuss your green building goals.
