Moving its Salt Lake employees to the skyline-altering downtown office building at 222 S. Main St. once it is completed next fall is yet another way the firm will try to reduce its impact on the environment.

Developer Hamilton Partners is working toward ensuring that the 22-story office building under construction directly south of the Hotel Monaco is the first LEED-certified high-rise in downtown Salt Lake City.

By adding features such as a high-efficiency heating-and-cooling system, energy-efficient lighting features and using recycled materials, the company is counting on attaining certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED.

The effort will enable Hamilton Partners to leave a smaller carbon footprint while making a huge imprint in downtown Salt Lake City with the biggest building built there in years.

To gain LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, buildings must meet certain criteria focused on using fewer natural resources during and after construction. Beyond a basic LEED certification, developers can seek the more involved silver, gold and platinum LEED status (each one being more involved and costly). The building at 222 S. Main St. will probably end up earning a LEED certification at the silver level.

"We're close to earning gold [LEED certification] but I think we'll probably end up with silver - we have that one in the bag," said Bruce Bingham, of Hamilton Partners.

Bingham said his company did not originally envision building an LEED-certified building. But before ground was broken the decision was made.

Part of that has to do with being more environmentally responsible, Bingham said. But another reason is that tenants increasingly are looking for space in "green" buildings as part of companywide initiatives to reduce their impact on the environment. Want more rationale? It also will save money in utilities in the long term.

Hamilton's first LEED effort was a 560,000-square-foot office building in the Chicago suburb of Mettawa built for financial services giant HSBC. It earned a platinum designation.

Hamilton Partners' Salt Lake City office tower, whose skeleton is halfway complete, is a multitenant building. Here, LEED certification will add about $1 million, or nearly 1 percent, to the estimated $125 million cost of construction, Bingham said.

Some extras, such as adding racks to encourage tenants to bike to work, are fairly cheap additions, but others are expensive. Bingham estimates Hamilton will spend $350,000 of the $1 million on consultants and other costs associated solely with documenting and proving he has complied with all the requirements of LEED certification.

LEED criteria ranges from the building's physical location (and proximity to mass transit) and features far beyond those that save natural resources. The Green Building Council, for example, looks very kindly on buildings with features such as showers for those who bike - or hoof it - to the office.

Bingham estimates that the certification will help reduce energy consumption by the building by about 15 percent. Even so, it will take many years to recoup the extra $1 million in terms of only energy savings.

Bingham thinks the effort will prove highly valuable in attracting tenants over time. "We're going to find ourselves with a more attractive building for tenants."

Chris Kirk, an office specialist with commercial brokerage Commerce CRG, said more tenants are increasingly asking about LEED certification. "It's something more people want, but it's not a deal-breaker at this point," although that time probably will come.

"LEED- certification is setting a standard for office buildings," he said. Already, several existing buildings along the Wasatch Front have been or are in the process of being renovated to meet LEED criteria.

Among those being constructed with LEED in mind is the Daybreak Corporate Center in South Jordan.

Attorney Steven Shurtz, Utah managing partner of Brinks, Hofer, Gilson & Lione, which will move to 222 S. Main St. from 405 S. Main St., said LEED certification played perfectly into the company's other "green" efforts. "We're very happy to be in a building like this."

In addition to the Brinks firm, which will lease about 7,500 square feet of space, two other tenants have committed to 222 S. Main, bringing the total pre-leased space to a highly respectable 90,000 square feet (or about a quarter of available space) more than a year before the building's scheduled debut, in November 2009.

The building will have about 425,000 square feet of space, about 9,000 of which will be retail or restaurant space.

The firm of Holland & Hart will occupy more than 67,000 square feet as the building's anchor tenant. Commercial real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis will take nearly 13,000 square feet.

Carl Barton, a partner with the Denver-based Holland & Hart, said his company plans on taking the building's LEED certification to another level by making environmentally friendly improvements of its own.

The law firm plans to add lighting features that are more expensive but easier on the environment.

"We could just be content to be in a LEED-certified building and do nothing more than that," Barton said. "But we are going to do much more."

lesley@sltrib.com