WELL, WELL, WELL….DTLA embraces workplace WELLness

Deepak Chopra told a packed crowd of Downtown business people at the opening of CBRE’s and DTLA’s first WELL® certified office building, that our environment is our “extended body”. He went on to state that CBRE is the first company in DTLA to create a place of “biological sustainability”, a place where simply by showing up for work, your body can begin to repair itself of all the external stressors impacting its health.

Is corporate America really ready to embrace the global trend toward workplace WELLness? And are they really ready to pay just a little more up front to design it in? If you spend any time listening to Lew Horne, the President of CBRE’s downtown Los Angeles flagship WELL® certified office environment, you would have to agree that indeed, corporate America is drinking the (unsweetened and organic) Kool-Aid. Horne addressed a group of top business leaders and politicians at a Los Angeles Business Council Board meeting in January, and his passionate presentation felt more like an Agape rally, in a good way. Horne told the story of how his office became the first DTLA WELL® certified space where employees do not have their own desk, let alone corner office; designing in a concept instead, called “free addressing”. Horne and his team had to fly to Amsterdam for inspiration on just how efficient the rest of the world works. They are free of the constraints of paper, assigned space and that ubiquitous corner skyline view office that screams you have indeed “arrived”. Which reminds me of the famous quote from the Dalai Lama:

“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. Then he is so anxious about the future that he doesn't enjoy the present: the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Horne knew he would be facing some pretty tough egos, and with a goal to create a space that would make everyone happy, he decided to take the lead and ask his staff to do as he does, even if it means purging thirty years of files stuffed into twelve cabinets, half of which hadn’t been opened in years. His strategy worked. And he literally created an office with a heart. The “heart” is actually, in fact, a real space in the center of the office where technology- sheepish executives can discreetly go for help with things an eight year old does automatically - a brilliant way to allow top producers to still produce with a little help from the “heart”.

Not everything they tried worked. The glass “stretching room” was a bust. The yoga classes are a hit and so are the healthy company-provided snacks, organic juicing, height-adjustable work surfaces, treadmill desks, circadian lighting and nightly UV wands that eradicate those pesky flu germs, so the next day rotation has a germ free desk, phone and keyboard. Horne and his team collaborated with a New York based company called DELOS, who created and rolled out the new WELL® building certification process (version 1.0 was launched to a packed conference in New Orleans in 2014). Board members include names like Leo De Caprio, Deepak, former President Bill Clinton and entrepreneur Steve Bing. DELOS CEO, Paul Scialla, a former Goldman Sachs guy, is as passionate about revolutionizing the spaces in which we work as Horne is in sharing his own revolution. At last count, according to Horne, 15,000 people from all over the world have toured the CBRE WELL® certified space in Downtown Los Angeles. And he has the parking bill to prove it!

Skeptics and bottom line thinkers always ask how much does all this cost the company? Horne has a ready answer for those skeptics. “Energy costs are about $3.00 per square foot, rent runs about $30.00 per square foot, but it’s the people cost’s, that to Horne, make all this a no-brainer. At $300.00 per foot, per person, you could pick any cost percentage, and building space this way would pencil right down to the free-to-employees yoga and organic candy bars. And he has the occupancy survey after 14 months in the space to prove it. 92% of the people that work there feel healthier and 83% feel more productive. Ask if they would go back to their old ways of working and you will be met with a resounding “no-way!”

And the CBRE space is not an anomaly. More and more, Downtown LA companies are following their lead. The BLOC, a Ratkovich Development, is also WELL® certified, as are Shangri La Construction and the new Haworth showroom, opening in April 2015, all located in Downtown LA. DELOS has more than 9 million square feet of pending certification projects since it launched the WELL® Building standard (version 1.0) in October.

It makes sense that LA would emerge as the center of WELL® places to work. It is, after all, so Hollywood!


Lori Tierney, is an author (Cougar Yoga), freelance writer and avid yoga enthusiast and native Angelino

Building Healthy Places Conference Gathers Real Estate Leaders

Last week in Los Angeles, in a post by writer, Rachel MacCleery, “leaders from a cross-section of real estate fields gathered for ULI’s Building Healthy Places: Unlocking the Value conference. The first of its kind for ULI, the event is part of a series of activities being undertaken by ULI as part of the Building Healthy Places Initiative, launched in July.

Co-chaired by the Colorado Health Foundation President Anne Warhover and past ULI chairman Peter Rummell, the conference explored the connections between health and the built environment, and opportunities to use real estate investments to help improve the health of people and create more valuable, thriving communities.

Nearly 300 people are attended the conference, which concluded on February 21st. Speakers painted a picture of troubling health trends– including rising rates of obesity and diabetes– problems linked directly or indirectly to the built environment and to land use decisions. “These are things that ULI’s members can help change,” said ULI’s chair Lynn Thurber, who discussed the strong and growing demand for buildings and projects that contribute to healthy outcomes for people.

“The more I’ve gotten involved in this, the more convinced I am that it will reshape development around the world,” said Peter Rummell. “I’m excited by the potential of building healthy places as a way of doing well by doing good. In my view, healthy amenities will do for community building in the 21st century what golf courses did in the 20th century.”

“The Colorado Health Foundation couldn’t be more pleased to be partnering with ULI on this Initiative,” said Anne Warhover. Noting that improving health care can only go so far, Anne challenged the attendees to figure out how health can be at the center of real estate development. “Philanthropy alone won’t be able to sustain the movement toward healthier places,” she said.

Lew Horn, Managing Director for CBRE in Southern California shared his vision for the recreation of CBRE’s corporate office environment focused on employee health and retention. Horn took a 200 person office of Commercial Brokers used to traditional office space with status perks like corner offices and told them you will now have no paper and no assigned office. This concept, called “free-addressing” will now be adopted across other CBRE offices around the world. Horn noted that wellness came into play after a trip to Amsterdam where he learned that sitting is “the new smoking”. He implemented sit to stand workstations, circadian lighting, aromatherapy, massage, daily yoga, flooring that aids in circulation and eases joint pain and implemented a daily anti microbial/UV lighting cleaning to destroy all bacteria each night. Horn noted that all of his brokerage team are having wellness programming conversations with their respective clients to foster and promote healthy office environments.

Around the world, communities face pressing health challenges related to the built environment. For many years, ULI and its members have been active players in discussions and projects that make the link between human health and development. Health is a core component of thriving communities, whether they are residential or commercial offices.

The ULI Building Healthy Places Initiative will build on that work with a multifaceted program—including research and publications, conventions and advisory activities—to leverage the power of the Institute’s global networks to shape projects and places in ways that improve the health of people and communities.

Through the two-year Building Healthy Places Initiative, which launched in July 2013, ULI is working to promote health across the Globe. #ulihealth