Courtyard Marriott invests in green

By Charles Sowell  

FEBRUARY 16, 2010 8:44 a.m. (0)

It may be one of the few times that being knee deep in hot water is  cool.

Greenville developer Windsor/Aughtry hopes so because they’re betting $250,000 that a commitment to making their new Courtyard Marriott at Main and Broad streets greener will equate to profitability.

And not just from savings on the power bill that will come from using the sun to heat all of the water the hotel will use for its guests.

“We like to think people who are visiting Greenville will consider this kind of thing when they’re deciding where to stay,” said Charles Reyner, a broker with Windsor/Aughtry during an early bird tour of the hotel and office development located next to City Hall and across the street from the Peace Center.

All told, 64-foot by 10-foot solar panels that use glycol as a heat exchanger will warm 2,900 gallons of water with a total heat output of 1.7 million British Thermal Units (BTUs) a day.

The panels will save 496 kilowatt hours a day, 36 tons of carbon dioxide a year which is the equivalent of planting 110 trees or pocketing the electricity use of 13 American homes.

“Our intention is to make environmentally friendly choices where possible,” said Paul C. “Bo” Aughtry, III, principal with Windsor/Aughtry.

The developer hopes the panels will have paid for themselves in five or six years.

It is the largest commercial solar hot water system in South Carolina, said John Clark of the state Energy Office.

The luxury hotel, joined at the hip with a commercial development anchored by Fidelity Investments and Nantucket Seafood Grill, is nearing a projected April opening date, Reyner said as workmen scurried about frantically trying to keep the work on schedule.

There will be 135 rooms at the Courtyard Marriott, Reyner said, pointing out a spot where part of the solar water system will be on display for hotel guests.

“We want people to see what we’ve done here,” he said.

The panels themselves are tucked away on the roof of the commercial development side of the project.

Reyner said there will be 65,000 square feet of office space available at the site; 2,800 square feet of it leased by Fidelity on the ground floor next door to Nantucket grill.

“The commercial side of the development will have a conventional hot water system,” Reyner said. “Nantucket Seafood Grill will be on its own hot water system that has a backup. In the restaurant business you don’t want to run out of hot water.”

The solar hot water system was designed and installed by FLS Energy out of North Carolina, Reyner said.

“North Carolina is way ahead of South Carolina in things like solar energy,” he said.

The developer has also designed the building to include photo-voltaic power panels if they become economically feasible.