Houston Goes Dark
One night every year, Downtown property owners compete for the darkest building in the Lights Out Houston event. Last week, we snapped the organizers: Crescents Frank Staats, Apollo BBCs Tim Murray, IFMAs Marina Badoian-Kriticos, and Air Zone Internationals Andy Bergman in front of (believe it or not) the Downtown skyline. The annual event is designed to show property owners that shutting off lights can be doneand has an impact on our city.
Andy tells us he first dreamed up the event in 08: He was walking back from a conference at the GRB at 9:30pm and was struck that every building was lit up like a Christmas tree. He and Frank co-founded the event that year and encouraged 10M SF to go dark. This year, 160M SF pledged to the blackout. Andy says eliminating 50% of Downtowns non-essential lighting from being left on overnight and over the weekends would save 8.4M kWh annually.
