As concerns over climate change move individuals toward more sustainable ways of living, green architecture has grown in popularity. Denver seems to be leading the charge in many aspects, including its recently built One River North building. Now, the doors to the country’s first carbon-positive hotel, Populus Hotel, will open in the city next month.
The Populus will open in mid-July at 14th Street and Colfax Avenue, right in the heart of downtown Denver. It will have 265 rooms, two restaurants and a rooftop bar enclosed in a garden terrace. Everything about its design—from the aspen tree-like facade developed by the architectural firm Studio Gang to the use of Biogreen 360 products to create a 100% renewable food waste system—aims to prove going green can also be elegant.
Denver resident Taka Otsuka plans to stay in the hotel after it opens in the next few weeks. He admires the hotel’s beauty and appreciates Studio Gang’s architecture and intricacies of design. He’s a fan of the firm’s other work as well, including one of his favorites, the 100 Above the Park building in St. Louis, Missouri. He said he was delighted to see that his favorite architecture firm had a new design being built in Denver.
“I love going around and seeing architecture; that’s what I wanna see, and then voila, Studio Gang,” Otsuka said.
There is much more than just the intricacies of the hotel’s inner workings that people may appreciate. Otsuka also admires the beauty on the outside.
“I know for someone who is new to architecture, this may seem useless, but to me, this is very valuable,” Otsuka said.
A genuinely carbon-positive hotel, which Populus claims to be, could be a big step in the future of renewable and clean energy commercial real estate and the hospitality industry. Every aspect of the hotel was designed with sustainability in mind: zero on-site parking, EcoPact low-carbon concrete and 100% renewable energy generated from regional off-site solar and wind farms operated by Xcel Energy.
The hotel claims it’s the first carbon-positive hotel in the United States due to its extreme efforts in the construction and longevity of the hotel. Still, the root of its carbon-positive nature comes from the 70,000 trees planted in Gunnison County, Colorado. Investments in carbon sinks are common these days; however, this would be the first time a hotel has been able to manage a carbon-neutral association with their hotel and do more for the environment than harm it.
Building Energy Efficiency Researcher Shanti Pless has been with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, for 25 years. His research has focused on net zero energy and zero carbon designs, and he has also worked with owners and developers on how to approach projects with net zero requirements.
“Trying to get more low carbon, low energy buildings built, renovated, and operated in the country is our goal,” Pless said.
Pless was familiar with the development and construction of the Populus Hotel and was aware of the practices the hotel project implemented during its construction. According to Pless, the idea of a carbon-positive label on your building is an attraction, but it is just a selling point. A true testament to an energy-efficient hotel comes from the hard work and the details in the construction and maintenance of the hotel rather than just offsetting it with planting trees.
“The offsets are more of a branding term at this point,” Pless said. “A lot of these big companies are doing offsets. The question is how much do you rely on offsets versus how much do you rely on the hard efficiency work?”
There is a carbon market out there consisting of large corporations essentially purchasing the label of carbon neutrality but, according to Pless, Denver requires buildings like the Populus Hotel to earn their accolades.
“More and more, we’re seeing a pivot towards real meaningful reductions,” Pless said. “We now have city-wide codes asking all new buildings to be all-electric. I think that is what’s important rather than just offsetting your way out of this problem.”
As of June 6, the U.S Department of Energy has finally released a national definition for a zero-emissions building: “A building that achieves zero operational emissions from energy use must be: (1) energy-efficient, (2) free of on-site emissions from energy use, and (3) powered solely from clean energy.”
The Populus Hotel checks all three requirements off the list, but the definition is incomplete. This is just the first aspect of the definition, and it solely looks at operational carbon emissions. The definition will also outline embodied carbon emissions and refrigerant emissions. The DOE has yet to officially create those definitions, but they are in the works.
Many may be convinced that something cannot be both fashionable and practical and that the two aspects will forever be pitted against each other. But the Populus’ construction suggests it is possible as the world enters a new era of design and purpose. Beauty, practicality and sustainability can all be one, as the Hotel Populus hopes to prove for the city of Denver. The true beauty lies in the hard work and effort put into the hotel both inside and out.
“As long as they’re open about how they’re doing it, people can judge for themselves. Is it marketing or is it actually true, meaningful change?” Pless said.
