Akridge Claims Top National Awards for 2010 Performance in Customer Service and in Energy Conservation

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Comprehensive commercial real estate services firm Akridge announced today that the company has been honored with national awards from real estate benchmarking firm CEL & Associates, Inc. (CEL) and from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for two key 2010 achievements in property management. CEL honored Akridge for performance in customer service with its national "A List – Best in the Industry" Award, while EPA named the company an ENERGY STAR Leader Top Performer. Akridge provides property management services to a portfolio of 36 buildings in the Washington area and has won both awards multiple times. The company has earned CEL's prestigious top national ranking among firms in its size category 11 times, and has been named a Top Performer for achieving portfolio-wide reductions in energy consumption in each of the last three years.

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"Akridge's commitment to service is the foundation of our company's culture and success," said Matthew J. Klein, president of Akridge. "Our staff takes great pride in adding value for our Clients every day. The CEL award gives us an annual opportunity to focus on, validate, and then reward those efforts. And our ongoing effort to reduce the carbon footprint of our portfolio makes us better stewards of our whole community, but also lowers energy costs within our buildings."

CEL & Associates, Inc. created the first national customer opinion surveys in the field of commercial real estate, and their awards have become some of the most coveted in the industry. The organization honors companies that have achieved the highest levels of service excellence based exclusively on its surveys of tenant satisfaction. Part of the National Real Estate Customer Service Awards Program, the "A List" honors the industry's best property management companies for achieving the highest standards of performance across a portfolio of properties categorized based on size and land-use type. Akridge also received 28 individual "A List" awards for excellence in customer service at specific properties.

ENERGY STAR is a joint program of EPA and the US Department of Energy established to encourage and recognize energy savings and environmental protection. Companies, buildings, and products meeting strict standards of efficiency can earn ENERGY STAR designation. The program's rating system categorizes organizations that have improved energy efficiency across all of the buildings in a portfolio by 10 percent or more over the year as Leaders. Companies whose building portfolios perform in the top 25 percent of energy efficiency nationwide are named Top Performers. Akridge is the only commercial real estate firm in the DC area to earn 2010 Top Performer status, and one of only 10 such firms nationwide. In addition to achieving Top Performer status for 2008, 2009, and 2010, Akridge has earned individual ENERGY STAR labels for 15 of the properties it manages. The other facilities in the company's portfolio have been benchmarked with the goal of achieving the same recognition.

About Akridge

Akridge is a comprehensive real estate services company that provides acquisition, development, construction management, asset management, property management, leasing and consulting services. For 11 of the last 12 years, Akridge has been ranked the number one real estate firm in the country, among firms of similar size, for Client satisfaction by the industry's foremost benchmarking firm, CEL & Associates. The Akridge organization has been honored with the National Capital Business Ethics Award, awarded by the Society of Financial Service Professionals, and has also been recognized as the Best Place to Work in Greater Washington according to the Washington Business Journal. For more information, please visit www.akridge.com.

About CEL & Associates, Inc.

CEL & Associates, Inc. is the nation's largest surveyor of tenant satisfaction within the real estate industry. The firm specializes in providing strategic planning services; benchmarking and client/customer satisfaction surveys; compensation program assessment and data; leadership training; and operational assessments to the real estate industry. Each year, CEL & Associates, Inc. tabulates survey results from thousands of buildings and hundreds of thousands of tenants. For more information, please visit: www.celassociates.com.

About ENERGY STAR

ENERGY STAR was introduced by EPA in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. Today, the ENERGY STAR label can be found on more than 60 different kinds of products, new homes, and commercial and industrial buildings. Products and buildings that have earned the ENERGY STAR designation prevent greenhouse gas emissions by meeting strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the government. In 2008, Americans, with the help of ENERGY STAR, saved about $19 billion on their energy bills while reducing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of 29 million vehicles. For more information, please visit www.energystar.gov/leaders.

SOURCE Akridge

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