“While many real-estate brokers and investors remain unaware of the potential financial gains, some savvy REITs and other investors are already searching for unrecognized green real-estate investment opportunities. For example, partly empty B, or second-tier office buildings in A, or top-tier markets may be renovated to green standards, thus allowing them to bring in premium rents and generate more favorable long-term returns. Jonathan Rose Companies formed…a limited partnership that will acquire properties in “Smart Growth” locations…and then carry out green renovations on those properties.”


“It is a rare announcement for a new commercial office building these days that does not trumpet the new structure’s ‘green’ features. In fact, nearly 5,000 buildings across the country, 90 percent of them new construction, are awaiting evaluation by the United States Green Building Council…. The trend, however, has not caught on to the same degree in the renovation of existing buildings. But one developer based in New York is banking on the potential growth of this sofar-overlooked market.

Jonathan F. P. Rose, a third-generation developer who founded the Jonathan Rose Companies in 1989 to marry for-profit development with a socially conscious mission, began the Rose Smart Growth Investment Fund a year ago. The $100 million limited partnership is one of the few environmentally oriented investment funds — perhaps the only one — to focus exclusively on the acquisition of existing properties in locations served by mass transit.”


“[Jonathan Rose] has been a leader—in his thoughts and deeds—in making sustainable real estate development a practical reality, not a dream or marketing slogan. The Rose Smart Growth Acquisition Fund, for example, is the first national smart growth real estate investment fund.”