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6 Reasons to Add a Rooftop Garden to an Apartment Building

6 Reasons to Add a Rooftop Garden to an Apartment Building
Photo: Unsplash.com

From various perspectives, a rooftop garden has the potential to offer significant advantages. Whether you’re considering it from the point of view of the apartment building owner or the tenant, there are numerous compelling reasons to explore adding a rooftop garden to an apartment building. While the specific benefits may vary, the idea of enhancing the building with a green space is worth considering for its positive impact.

1. Enhances Aesthetic Appeal

A well-kept rooftop garden looks tremendously better than a rooftop with nothing but HVAC units and utility access points. When you hire a custom landscape company to design and build a rooftop garden, you’ll gain a green space abundant with colorful flowers and vibrant green shrubbery, complete with hardscaping, seating areas, pathways, and even water features.

2. Improves Air Quality

Due to the massive square footage atop a typical apartment building, a rooftop garden can dramatically improve the air quality. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, working like a filter to clean and oxygenize air. Every little bit helps, especially in congested urban areas.

3. Reducing Energy Costs

Rooftops often absorb a great deal of heat from the sun, making the building’s HVAC units work harder and longer to keep the interior rooms cool and comfortable. This drives utility bills skyward. Rooftop gardens help mitigate energy costs by reducing the heat absorbed by the apartment building.

4. Provides Relaxing Space

Rooftop gardens are beautiful places for apartment dwellers to relax and unwind after a long day. The cooling and attractive environment may work to increase a tenant’s happiness level. In fact, being around natural greenery may even help to calm nerves, according to some studies. This may lead to happier and more satisfied tenants who could potentially be more likely to extend their leases year after year.

5. Offers a Selling Point

Building owners and leasing agents can even list a rooftop garden as a building amenity since it works as a selling point to potential tenants. Green spaces, especially in urban areas, are highly desirable and rare, so this amenity helps to position an apartment building with a rooftop garden above the competition. A rooftop garden may make the difference between a tenant choosing one apartment over another.

6. Serves as a Green Factor

Many cities have introduced green building standards and incentives for sustainable construction practices. Installing a rooftop garden can help an apartment building owner comply with these regulations and qualify for benefits such as tax breaks, grants, or reduced permit fees. Meeting green building standards can also help make the apartment building eligible for certifications like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). This can further enhance the building’s marketability and appeal to tenants seeking eco-friendly living spaces.

Installing a rooftop garden on an apartment building can be as simple as contacting the right professional landscaping company specializing in green spaces. Since adding a rooftop garden can help to attract and retain tenants, lower energy bills, provide a selling point, improve air quality, and more, it makes sense to improve an apartment building with a lush and beautiful rooftop garden.

Published by: Martin De Juan

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