Green more fashionable in Tampa real estate

The latest green building adoption index from CBRE Group ranks the Tampa Bay market 17th in the nation for the amount of office space registered with EPA's Energy Star, or the U.S. Green Building Council. Using square feet as a measure, a little less than 32% of Tampa's office market is green, the report states.

That's a jump of 4.6%, and was the biggest increase of all the metro areas CBRE studied, according to a release. Tampa had 64 transactions involving buildings that have been certified with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED. That's 1.4 million square feet, with five of 25 leases tracked by CBRE also taking place in LEED-certified buildings.

Tampa Bay now has Dallas/Fort Worth and Portland between it and the top 15, but the area still has a ways to go. Only 7.5% of the region's buildings are totally green, the lowest percentage of any metro in the top 20. By comparison, the greenest metro area -- Minneapolis/St. Paul -- boasts 70% of its square footage as totally green, as well as more than 28% of its buildings, the report shows.

The only other Florida metro area to make the list was Miami, which stays at No. 9 with 41.6% of its square footage totally green and 17.5% of its buildings.

CBRE Research worked with the Green Building Council on the study, is now in its second year. The index is designed to show growth in Energy Star and LEED-certified space in 30 of the largest U.S. office markets over the last 10 years.