Seward Apartments

How does Seward Apartments compare with other multifamily housing buildings in Evanston?

The latest disclosures cover 172 multifamily housing buildings in Evanston, out of 366 buildings citywide. Seward Apartments's ENERGY STAR score of 88 compares with an average of 71 across the 149 that report a score; it scores higher than 69% of them and lower than 27%. Its site EUI of 71.0 kBtu/ft² is roughly in line with the average of 75.6 kBtu/ft² — it uses less energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 4.7 kgCO₂e/ft² is about 18% below the group average of 5.7 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 32,136 sq ft, it is about 60% below the average floor area of 80,265 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1928, 21 years earlier than the group's average year built (1949). 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 88 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 88 means the building performs better than about 88% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 88 falls in band A — high performer (85–100). 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 Evanston, 45% 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. Seward Apartments's 71.0 kBtu/ft² across 32,136 sq ft works out to about 2.3 billion Btu (669 MWh-equivalent) in 2019. Its source EUI of 89.5 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 80,738 kWh of electricity, 20,054 therms of natural gas and 1,535 thousand gallons of water for the year.

Which law requires Seward Apartments to report its energy use?

Seward Apartments reports under the Healthy Buildings Ordinance (1-O-25), the legal basis of Evanston's Building Energy and Water Use Benchmarking program, which publishes each covered building's annual benchmarking results. The record shown here is the report-year 2019 disclosure (source record evanston:102864:2019). Evanston's Healthy Buildings Ordinance (1-O-25) requires buildings of 20,000 sq ft or more to benchmark and report energy and water use by June 30 each year; the city says non-compliance fines of $250 per month begin January 1, 2027.