WASHINGTON, DC-Beacon Capital Partners just received LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance for ten office buildings it owns in the area--one of the largest portfolio LEED certifications for the Mid Atlantic, according to Evan Tyroler, vice president of Sustainability Services with Cassidy Turley. Tyroler led the team at Cassidy Turley that helped Beacon get the Silver certification for the combined 2.5 million square feet of office space.

The buildings are Lafayette Centre One, Two, and Three in the District’s CBD and Liberty Place, in the East End submarket. In Virginia, the buildings that received LEED Silver certification included John Marshall III and  EJ Randolph II in Mclean, American Center East and American Center West in Vienna, 11111 Sunset Hills Rd. in Reston and the Zachary Taylor Building in Arlington.

Attaining LEED certification for a portfolio adds a layer of complexity to the process, Tyroler tells GlobeSt.com--but the efficiency improvements in operations and maintenance are such that companies are increasingly interested in taking the necessary steps. Currently, Cassidy Turley is in talks with other building owners in the area to implement a portfolio approach similar to Beacon’s, Tyroler adds.

“If you have, say, ten multi-tenant buildings it can be challenging to get such a large and diverse set of tenants to buy in to the process,” he says. “But we have identified ways to do that.” These largely focus on education and engagement, such as meeting with office managers and tenants and educating them on the benefits. It also includes providing as much assistance as possible, like identifying the problems with compliance--for instance not enough recycling bins--and then rectifying those issues. In general, Tyroler says, corporate interest in LEED EB has been picking up.

This interest will no doubt continue to grow as the US Green Building Council’s latest initiative gains traction. It announced last week at the 2011 BOMA International Conference that the LEED Volume Program for Operations & Maintenance is now available for existing green building projects. The track, which focuses on operations and maintenance needs, is designed for LEED’s largest users, USGBC senior vice president Scot Horst said in a prepared statement.