Northtown Apartments

How does Northtown Apartments compare with other multifamily housing buildings in Chicago?

The latest disclosures cover 1,515 multifamily housing buildings in Chicago, out of 3,852 buildings citywide. Northtown Apartments's ENERGY STAR score of 10 compares with an average of 62 across the 1,472 that report a score; it scores higher than 4% of them and lower than 95%. Its site EUI of 68.8 kBtu/ft² is roughly in line with the average of 72.0 kBtu/ft² — it uses less energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 7.0 kgCO₂e/ft² is about 21% above the group average of 5.8 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 62,770 sq ft, it is about 70% below the average floor area of 206,097 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 2019, 48 years later than the group's average year built (1971). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 59,945 multifamily housing buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 70 and a site EUI of 59.0 kBtu/ft².

How has Northtown Apartments's energy performance changed over time?

BuildingCensus holds 4 Chicago disclosures for Northtown Apartments, covering report years 2020–2023. Only one of those years carries energy figures.

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 10 mean?

ENERGY STAR scores run from 1 to 100 and are computed by the EPA's Portfolio Manager as a percentile against similar buildings nationwide, adjusted for climate, size and use: a score of 10 means the building performs better than about 10% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 10 falls in band D — lowest band (1–54). It sits 65 points below 75, the threshold for ENERGY STAR certification. In Chicago, 35% of scored buildings are at 75 or above.

Site energy-use intensity (EUI) is the energy a building uses on site in a year divided by its floor area, in thousand Btu per square foot — lower is more efficient. Northtown Apartments's 68.8 kBtu/ft² across 62,770 sq ft works out to about 4.3 billion Btu (1,266 MWh-equivalent) in 2023. Its source EUI of 139.6 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 708,315 kWh of electricity and 19,001 therms of natural gas for the year.

Which law requires Northtown Apartments to report its energy use?

Northtown Apartments reports under the Building Energy Use Benchmarking Ordinance, the legal basis of the Chicago Energy Benchmarking program, which publishes each covered building's annual benchmarking results. The record shown here is the report-year 2023 disclosure (source record chicago:256805:2023). Covered buildings that fail to benchmark and report face fines of up to $100 plus $25 per day of violation under the ordinance.