Uptown Preservation Apartments

How does Uptown Preservation 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. Uptown Preservation Apartments's ENERGY STAR score of 79 compares with an average of 62 across the 1,472 that report a score; it scores higher than 65% of them and lower than 34%. Its site EUI of 80.3 kBtu/ft² is about 12% above the average of 72.0 kBtu/ft² — it uses more energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 5.4 kgCO₂e/ft² is roughly in line with the group average of 5.8 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 70,000 sq ft, it is about 66% below the average floor area of 206,097 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1912, 59 years earlier 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.

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 79 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 79 means the building performs better than about 79% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 79 falls in band B — above median (70–84). Scores of 75 or higher meet the threshold for ENERGY STAR certification; certification itself is a separate, verified application that the disclosure does not record. 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. Uptown Preservation Apartments's 80.3 kBtu/ft² across 70,000 sq ft works out to about 5.6 billion Btu (1,647 MWh-equivalent) in 2023. Its source EUI of 107.1 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 266,850 kWh of electricity, 47,116 therms of natural gas and 5,630 thousand gallons of water for the year.

Which law requires Uptown Preservation Apartments to report its energy use?

Uptown Preservation 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:257186:2023). Covered buildings that fail to benchmark and report face fines of up to $100 plus $25 per day of violation under the ordinance.