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Oakville Building Advisors offers comprehensive program management for building decarbonization, encompassing strategic planning, design, construction, and commissioning, starting with initial assessments.

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Construction Management

Kye Holtan-Brown established Oakville Building Advisors in the fall of 2022, with a mission of helping the real estate industry profitably transition its building stock to being better for the planet and better for people by being low-carbon, low- or net-zero-energy, and with design focused on occupant comfort and wellness.

She has been in the construction industry for almost 30 years. Her start in the industry was a little non-traditional, and included a temporary job with a general contractor, followed by helping build a custom log home in the Northwest. After that she moved to Denver where she spent many years in estimating and preconstruction management for commercial building contractors, working on projects across Colorado and nationally that have included offices, multi-family, mixed-use, educational,mountain resort, parking structures, and military projects.

Most recently Kye worked as an Owner’s Rep/Construction Manager for the National Western Stock Show, wearing a few different hats. She has spent seven years representing the WSSA as part of the $1BN+ National Western Center redevelopment, working as program manager for the Legacy Building, a new 117,000 SF mixed-use buildings with office, event, and gallery spaces that will be the new headquarters for the WSSA, and squeezing in some project management work on various critical special projects.

Education + Affiliations

Her education includes a master’s degree in real estate and construction management (MRECM) from the University of Denver’s Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management. Part of the way she gives back to her alma mater and supports the learning of the next generation of CRE professionals is teaching as a part-time adjunct professor. Most recently she has taught a class titled “Triple Bottom Line and the Built Environment” that focused on perspectives and strategies related to balancing environment, social, and financial goals for real estate projects.

She is currently a member of ULI-Colorado, CREW-Denver, Rocky Mountain DBIA, and is also a member of the CREW national ESG Council. As a past member and current supporter of ASPE (the American Society of Professional Estimators), Kye has been a board member, chapter president, provided 16 hours of on-line course materials, and been a guest presenter for local and national conferences and estimating academies. She also occasionally does guest speaking for groups such as DBIA, DU’s Executive Real Estate Round Table, ASPE, and other CRE and educational entities.

Ready to start decarbonizing your building?

We Can Help

High-performance
Market-leading
Ready for the future

Improve building energy performance; reduce greenhouse-gas emissions; create a healthy, attractive place for occupants; improve asset financials; lead the market and differentiate your product; meet regulatory requirements; mitigate future market and energy-cost risks; support tenant, company, and investor ESG commitments and goals; and more…

“Building decarbonization encompasses a building’s life cycle, including building design, construction, operation, occupancy, and end of life. Building construction, energy use, methane, and refrigerants are the primary sources of GHG emissions.” ASHRAE (3)

Q&A with the Owner of Oakville Building Advisors

What do you do?
  • Construction Manager / Owner Advisor is Kye’s favorite role. It is where she can use the full breadth of her experience and expertise to benefit the project and the client.
  • Much of her work involves program management, design integration and design management.
  • Her extensive experience providing pre-construction services with a focus on cost management is a very unique skill to have when helping clients evaluate multiple options.
  • Education is a core value and key strength. She’s developed and taught technical trainings, done many presentations & speaking engagements, and also work at the university-level as a lecturer and adjunct professor.
How do you define “Net-Zero”?

Net-zero is one of those terms with many facets but is often treated as if it has a single, commonly understood definition. Kye tries to keep it simple and focus on the two most common versions – Net-Zero-Energy and Net-Zero-Carbon. Reducing carbon and other greenhouse-gas emissions significantly is how we will fix, or at least quit damaging, this planet of ours.

Net-zero-energy is a way to help achieve lowering carbon emissions from buildings if we do three things:

  1. Make the building much more energy efficient – that is known as demand reduction.
  2. Change to all-electric for heating, cooling, and hot water – leverage the ability of electricity to be generated from renewable, non-emitting sources.
  3. Select building materials carefully, and renovate and re-use as much as possible, to minimize the embodied carbon-emissions of the building itself.
What drives your focus on transforming buildings into net-zero assets?
  • Existing buildings are a large part of the built environment, and it will be less wasteful to retrofit them instead of tearing down and constructing new buildings to reduce GHG emissions.
  • Buildings contribute about 40% of green-house gasses on a global scale. There is huge opportunity to improve building performance and at the same time improve the quality of spaces for occupants.
  • The technical and economic challenges of retrofits require strong teams and a commitment to a collaborative approach. Integrated design and close coordination with owners/developers and end-users is a great way to work together to leverage the best everyone on the team can offer. It also drives superior results for clients.
  • Net-zero may not be 100% achievable (yet), but that is what makes it a great goal!
Where is Oakville?

Oakville is the rural area of western Oregon where Kye grew up and learned some key life lessons:

  • Don’t be wasteful.
  • Neighbors help neighbors.
  • If you have the time to do something, you have the time to do it right.
  • If you spill it, clean it up; if you break it, fix it.
What is the story behind the farm picture on the website?

This is the actual farm Kye grew up on in rural Oregon. The lessons she learned here are a driving force behind the mission of Oakville Building Advisors.