Don Billings, director of development and construction at Hamilton Partners, said his company is building its 222 S. Main office tower in Salt Lake to LEED standards. The 22-story building, scheduled for completion in 2009, will feature more than 350,000 square feet of class A office space.

"We are doing everything we can to get the project to a silver LEED certification," he said.

Billings said his company also has agreed to use sustainable energy for the office tower. "We plan on purchasing what's referred to as green power for the whole building for the first two years of the project," he said.

The company expects to recoup that initial expenditure through energy savings within the first few years of the building's operation, he said.

Stephen Smith with GSBS Architects said that although the Wasatch Front has been slow to change from its old development habits, developers are starting to recognize the positive attributes of green building. Developers who are just interested in quick resale of a property will not realize the cost benefit of higher building standards, but those who are thinking long-term can definitely see increased profits.

"If I'm going to realize a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on operating costs, we're talking about a lot of money over the life of the building," he said.

Smith said green building will have a significant impact on the amount of carbon emissions that commercial buildings release into the atmosphere.

"Commercial buildings generate more global-warming gases than almost anything else, about 50 to 60 percent of all greenhouses emissions," he said. "They create so much of the problem, so now they can become so much of the solution."

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