An independent tool for viewing City of Chicago building data
According to the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan, a whopping 69% of Chicago's emissions come from buildings, making it our biggest challenge and our biggest opportunity as a city to tackle change. At Electrify Chicago, we want to showcase some of the best and worst performing buildings in the city using publicly available data and manual annotations to add building photographs and label multi-building owners like universities.
You can start by looking at Chicago's buildings with the highest greenhouse gas intensity - this means that they use the most energy when adjusted per unit of square foot, so big buildings could actually perform much better than very inefficient small buildings on this metric.
The City Of Chicago failed to collect $30 million in potential fines from the building benchmarking ordinance, reducing transparency and accountability.
As of late January 2024, legislation is being introduced to require new use more efficient forms of water and space heating, via the Clean And Affordable Buildings Ordinance (CABO), which will reduce the number of highly polluting and inefficient buildings that end up on this site.
If you're in Chicago, write to your alderman to support the CABO!
Note: This data only includes buildings whose emissions are reported under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance. According to the City “As of 2016, this list includes all commercial, institutional, and residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet.” This dataset is also then filtered to only buildings with reported emissions > 1,000 metric tons CO2 equivalent.
This data is also from 2021, but when new benchmark data is available, we'll update the site.
Property Name / address | Primary Property Type |
Greenhouse Gas Intensity (kg CO2 eq./sqft) |
Total Greenhouse Emissions (metric tons CO2 eq.) |
---|---|---|---|
Cook Brothers
1740 N Kostner Ave
| Retail Store | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 1,081 tons
Highest 42%
|
Marillac Soical Center
212 S Francisco Ave
| Pre-school/Daycare | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 1,041 tons
Highest 44%
|
Interwest Chicago Hotel LLC dba Claridge House
1244 N Dearborn St
| Hotel | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 842 tons
Lowest 48%
|
West Side Realty Corporation
1645 W Jackson Blvd
| Medical Office | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 1,274 tons
Highest 37%
|
3335 W Diversey Ave AKA 2769-2789 N Milwaukee Ave
2769 2789 N MILWAUKEE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 501 tons
Lowest 27%
|
303 W Erie
303 W Erie St
| Office | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 522 tons
Lowest 29%
|
55 E. Jackson Acquisitions LLC
55 E Jackson Blvd
| Office | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 4,349 tons
Highest 8%
|
111 N Canal
111 N Canal St
| Office | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 9,807 tons
Highest 3%
|
Steeple Center
4916 4938 S KEDZIE AVE
| Strip Mall | 9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 849 tons
Lowest 49%
|
Kinzie State Condo Association
360 N STATE ST
| Other | 9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 751 tons
Lowest 44%
|
123 Madison
123 W Madison St
| Office | 9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 894 tons
Highest 49%
|
The Clare
55 E Pearson St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 6,227 tons
Highest 5%
|
Columbus Plaza Venture LLC
233 E Wacker Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 4,412 tons
Highest 8%
|
CDM Center
(DePaul)
243 S Wabash Ave
| College/University | 9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 1,828 tons
Highest 25%
|
645 North Michigan
645 N Michigan Ave
| Office | 9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 2,147 tons
Highest 21%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data