South Carolina CEO sat down with Robert (Robbie) W. Ferris, co-founder and CEO of Firstfloor, Inc. and its sister company, Firstfloor Energy Positive. Established to serve communities throughout South Carolina, the company’s core focus is providing turnkey development solutions for educational institutions, with a strong focus on energy positive construction and operations.

During our one-on-one with Ferris, we learned about the company’s latest design-build-operation projects in Horry County, including five new high performance and energy positive schools. Three of those schools will be open for the start of the 2017-2018 school year and the last of which should be occupied by early 2018. Ferris also provided insights into their unique business model, the principals and core values of the company, and their mission to improve occupant performance and productivity in the energy positive learning and work environments they create.

Robbie Ferris, Eric J. Lindstrom, and Rick Green founded Firstfloor, Inc. in 2000. Firstfloor is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with a satellite office in Winston-Salem, NC. In 2014, the principals founded Firstfloor Energy Positive as a SC business entity to serve South Carolina’s demand for positive energy and high performance building services.

During their first few years of operation in SC, Firstfloor Energy Positive designed and built five new energy positive facilities for Horry County Schools, including: Socastee Middle School, Socastee Elementary School, St. James Intermediate School, Carolina Forest Middle School and Myrtle Beach Middle School. Each of these new facilities is a high-performance, safe and secure learning environment with classrooms, signature core spaces and features energy positive building systems.

Inside Firstfloor Energy Positive

“We started our sister company to focus on South Carolina’s new design-build-operate law,” said Ferris. “Prior to the RFP for the Horry County Schools, we had completed maybe 20 projects or so in South Carolina. Some of the Horry County school board members came to visit our project in Dillon, and liked what they saw. When it came time to do their new school-build projects, they already knew who we were. I was asked to present to the board how we could help them build 5 traditional schools (with big electric bills) over a 7-year period.”

“I did some analysis and educated the school board about accelerated construction,” Ferris explained. “I was able to demonstrate how they could not only reduce their very large electric bills, but also reduce the total cost of ownership for their new schools. I was able to show the board that if they built all 5 schools at once and made them energy positive it would save them tens of millions of dollars. The board of education decided to go in that direction. They put out an RFP, and we ended up selected.”

“The five schools we built in Horry County are in different stages,” Ferris continued. “Ten Oaks Middle School, St. James Intermediate School and Socastee Elementary School have each been awarded their certificates of occupancy to make them operational. These three schools will be open for the first day of the 2017-2018 school year. Myrtle Beach Middle School is on schedule to be completed by the end of October 2017 and Socastee Middle School will be operational by February 2018.”

“Net-zero means the building generates the same amount of energy that it consumes,” Ferris said. “Energy-positive means they generate more electricity than they consume; we develop buildings that generate 10% to 80% more energy than they consume.”

“We built Sandy Grove Middle School, and have already reduced energy consumption by 20%, just by optimizing their systems,” Ferris said. “We have a project underway right now that will generate 80% more energy than it will consume. And, most recently, we were selected to do another energy-positive high school in Laurens District 55.”

“Most utility companies do offer cash rebates, not all, but most of them do,” Ferris said. “Every utility is a little different and have utility rate structures that apply to buildings with solar. The school district will not only see a significant reduction in their electric bills. In some cases we have been able to eliminate the electrical cost to the school district. As an example, Horry middle schools would traditionally pay approximately $220,000 a year for electricity. With energy positive construction, they will probably pay on average $50,000 a year. That savings is $170,000 per school, when you multiple that by five schools, you can see significant savings each year for Horry County Schools going forward. The savings are even greater when you look at the dollars they will save over the life of each of those buildings.”

Competition, Challenges and Credo

“Right now, there aren’t many firms doing design-build-operate,” Ferris stated. “There are probably 50 to 60 net-zero buildings that generate the same amount of energy they consume. It’s becoming a trend nationally, but there are probably less than 1% of buildings that are being built are net zero. I hope it becomes more commonplace, because I believe it is the responsible thing to do.”

“Our biggest challenge is to convince people that what we do works,” Ferris described. “Fear is a powerful deterrent when you are doing something that no one else is doing.

Fortunately, we have an energy positive building in its 4^th year of operation. Once you see that facility, there’s no disputing it.”

“As CEO of company, it was my responsibility to develop strategic direction for the company,” Ferris said. “In 2005/2006 I spent a lot of time thinking about our company, who we are, and who we want to become. I developed our BHAG, otherwise known as our Big Hairy Audacious Goal.”

“Our goal is to be the premier developer of   high performance buildings,” Ferris stated. “This goes beyond energy positive. It also includes good air quality, good light, good space planning, and improved performance for the building’s occupants. Studies have shown that good light and air quality make a big difference in occupant performance.”

“Our expansion is really a natural outgrowth of our company’s principals,” continued Ferris. “The principals in our firm are very much together in our set of values and the direction we want to go.”

“Occupant performance is way more important than all of our work in energy,” according to Ferris. “It’s just natural to gravitate to things we can measure. We start the conversation about energy consumption because that is measurable in utility bill savings. We should start every conversation about occupant performance. That is really what matters at the end of the day. We want to improve student test scores. For an office building, we want to improve performance for its employees. Those are the real cost savings and have significant economic impact beyond energy. If you can improve test scores by 5% that is huge; and if you can improve productivity of worker who makes $100,000 by 3-5%, that is so much more money than the elimination of a power bill,” he said.

“One of the unique things we do is in operations,” continued Ferris. “We believe that as architects and contractors, being involved in the operations of the building for the first three years is critical. We need to see how the building is performing, how people like the building, and where we can make improvements in the systems. For the projects we are doing in Myrtle Beach, we have two full time people who will work in those buildings to optimize their performance for a three year period. We help the owner learn how to best utilize the building. When we are done, the building is operating optimally.”

“There is no reason not to do a high performance building that reduces or eliminates high energy costs,” according to Ferris. “There’s every reason to do it. We do some traditional buildings still. Although, we believe we are not living up to our fullest when we don’t push hard to make what we build high performance.” 

“I want to design a school where a student enjoys learning so much, they never want to leave,” Ferris concluded. “That’s what I believe our job is. If we can do that, I think we’ve succeeded.”

New Horry County High Performance School Snapshots

Ten Oaks Middle School

This facility is 170,784 sf, with a student capacity of 1,200. It includes 36 classrooms, 12 science classrooms, 6 open collaboration spaces, and 9 exploratory classrooms. Building features include: energy positive, sustainability features: thermally active building system, centralized geothermal HVAC, solar PV, LED lighting, enhanced building automation, world class indoor air quality, superior building envelope, monitoring-based commissioning and advanced building analytics post construction.

St. James Intermediate

This facility is 170,784 sf, with a student capacity of 1,200. It includes 36 classrooms, 12 science classrooms, 6 open collaboration spaces, and 9 exploratory classrooms. Building features include: energy positive, sustainability features: thermally active building system, centralized geothermal HVAC, solar PV, LED lighting, enhanced building automation, world class indoor air quality, superior building envelope, monitoring-based commissioning and advanced building analytics post construction.

Myrtle Beach Middle School

This facility is 170,784 sf, with a student capacity of 1,200. It includes 36 classrooms, 12 science classrooms, 6 open collaboration spaces, and 9 exploratory classrooms. Building features include: energy positive, sustainability features: thermally active building system, centralized geothermal HVAC, solar PV, LED lighting, enhanced building automation, world class indoor air quality, superior building envelope, monitoring-based commissioning and advanced building analytics post construction.

Socastee Midldle School

This facility is 150,606 sf, with a student capacity of 800. It includes 36 classrooms, 12 science classrooms, 6 open collaboration spaces, and 9 exploratory classrooms. Building features include: energy positive, sustainability features: thermally active building system, centralized geothermal HVAC, solar PV, LED lighting, enhanced building automation, world class indoor air quality, superior building envelope, monitoring-based commissioning and advanced building analytics post construction.

Socastee Elementary School

This facility is 120,401 sf, with a student capacity of 916. It includes 9 Pre-K & K classrooms, 4 Pre-K & K open collaboration spaces, 30 primary classrooms, 10 primary open collaboration spaces, and 9 exploratory classrooms. Building features include: energy positive, sustainability features: thermally active building system, centralized geothermal HVAC, solar PV, LED lighting, enhanced building automation, world class indoor air quality, superior building envelope, monitoring-based commissioning and advanced building analytics post construction.