Cole Spring Plaza Apartments

How does Cole Spring Plaza Apartments compare with other multifamily housing buildings in Montgomery County?

The latest disclosures cover 553 multifamily housing buildings in Montgomery County, out of 1,766 buildings citywide. Cole Spring Plaza Apartments's ENERGY STAR score of 81 compares with an average of 80 across the 514 that report a score; it scores higher than 38% of them and lower than 60%. Its site EUI of 55.1 kBtu/ft² is about 28% above the average of 43.2 kBtu/ft² — it uses more energy per square foot than the typical building in that group.

At 256,407 sq ft, it is about 29% above the average floor area of 198,668 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1967, 22 years earlier than the group's average year built (1989). 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 81 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 81 means the building performs better than about 81% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 81 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 Montgomery County, 53% 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. Cole Spring Plaza Apartments's 55.1 kBtu/ft² across 256,407 sq ft works out to about 14.1 billion Btu (4,141 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. Its source EUI of 96.6 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 1,660,440 kWh of electricity and 84,700 therms of natural gas for the year.

Which law requires Cole Spring Plaza Apartments to report its energy use?

Cole Spring Plaza Apartments reports under the Benchmarking Law (Bill 2-14) / BEPS (Bill 16-21), the legal basis of Montgomery County's Commercial Building Energy Benchmarking program, which publishes each covered building's annual benchmarking results. The record shown here is the report-year 2024 disclosure (source record montgomery_county:27980627:2024). Montgomery County's BEPS (Bill 16-21; regulations approved in 2025) sets declining site-EUI standards for buildings of 25,000+ sq ft, with interim and then final standards later this decade and into the 2030s depending on building type.