Quantifying the Financial Benefits of Multifamily Retrofits: Chicago, IL

There are nearly half a million multifamily units in Chicago. More than 250,000 of these units are in census tracts marked as low and moderate income by the New Markets Tax Credit Program database. Furthermore, more than 60% of low-income individuals living in multifamily buildings in Chicago reside in buildings that are more than 75 years old. This situation presents significant potential for energy savings in buildings that operate under very small margins and that need to capitalize on all possible cost savings.

In this project, the U.S. Department of Energy Building America team Partnership for Advanced Residential Retrofit (PARR) worked with Elevate Energy on three tasks: to conduct pre- and post-retrofit analysis on the income and expense data of 13 Chicago-area multifamily buildings, to compare Chicago income and expense data to two national samples, and to explore the ramifications that energy-efficiency retrofits have on nine Chicago-area neighborhoods. The project team collected building, energy, and income and expense data from multiple private and public sources.