Buckhead Tower at Lenox Square, a high-rise commercial office building in Atlanta, recently finalized its LEED performance period and has formally applied for certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Buckhead Tower is one in a series of buildings owned and managed by Parmenter Realty Partners undergoing sustainability upgrades, such as adding electric vehicle charging stations, enhancing lighting controls with photocell and motion sensors, and retrofitting its restroom systems with water-efficient UPPERCUT dual-flush flushometers from Sloan.
“In going through the LEED process, we evaluated our domestic water fixtures and studied a payback analysis,” says Eileen Gohr, Sustainability Manager for Parmenter Realty Partners. “We selected the Sloan dual-flush technology to replace about 40 fixtures in the building.” The UPPERCUT flushometers replaced 3.5 gpf flush valves at Buckhead Tower, which was built in 1986.
Gohr and her team, which oversee sustainability initiatives for over 20 commercial buildings across the U.S., calculated a payback of about 2.72 years on the UPPERCUT flushometers. “Since the payback was under three years, we could more easily sell it as an attractive project to the executive group,” she explains.
The UPPERCUT is available as a complete flushometer or as a retrofit for converting existing manual flush valves to dual-flush operation. Restroom visitors simply lift the handle for a water-saving 1.1 gpf flush or push it down for a standard 1.6 gpf flush. Signage that accompanies each UPPERCUT educates visitors on its proper usage.
Sloan is the world’s leading manufacturer of commercial plumbing systems and has been in operation since 1906. Headquartered in Franklin Park, Illinois, the company is at the forefront of the green building movement and provides sustainable restroom solutions by manufacturing water-efficient products such as flush valves, electronic faucets and soap dispensing systems, sink systems and vitreous china fixtures for commercial, industrial and institutional markets worldwide.
Parmenter Realty Partners is a real estate investment, management and development company, headquartered in Miami, Florida, with regional offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. Parmenter operates a series of institutional investment funds focused on the southern and mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S.