Skip to Main Content

Herman Hall 
🚨

3241 S Federal Street, Chicago IL, 60616 Find on Google Maps (opens in a new tab)

Chicago Building ID: 256427

Attribution: Image Source (opens in a new tab). Cropped from original.

Building Info

Square Footage
111,135 sqft
Lower than 90% of all buildings
1/3 median
296,415 sqft
0.6x median College/University
197,052 sqft
Built
1962
Primary Property Type
College/University
Community Area
Douglas
Owner
Illinois Institute of Technology
View All Tagged Illinois Tech Buildings

Note: Owner manually tagged. Logo used under fair use.

Emissions & Energy Information

For 2020

Greenhouse Gas Intensity
89.2 kg CO2e / sqft
#6 Highest in Chicago* 🚨
#2 Highest of College/Universities 🚨
12x median
7.7 kg CO2e / sqft
9x median College/University
9.9 kg CO2e / sqft
Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions
9,912.1 metric tons CO2 eq.
#4 Highest of College/Universities 🚨
Higher than 94% of all buildings
4.8x median
2,063.4 metric tons CO2 eq.
4.9x median College/University
2,019.8 metric tons CO2 eq.
Source Energy Usage Intensity
1,546.2 kBtu / sqft
#7 Highest in Chicago* 🚨
#2 Highest of College/Universities 🚨
11x median
143.1 kBtu / sqft
8x median College/University
183.2 kBtu / sqft
Site Energy Usage Intensity
1,637 kBtu / sqft
#3 Highest in Chicago* 🚨
#2 Highest of College/Universities 🚨
20x median
81.9 kBtu / sqft
18x median College/University
93.3 kBtu / sqft
Natural Gas Use
62,278.2 kBtu
#15 Lowest in Chicago* 🏆
#3 Lowest of College/Universities 🏆
1/199 median
12,367,856.3 kBtu
1/142 median College/University
8,843,700.1 kBtu
Electricity Use
2,088,809.4 kBtu
#14 Lowest in Chicago* 🏆
#2 Lowest of College/Universities 🏆
1/4 median
8,755,592 kBtu
1/4 median College/University
8,220,436.6 kBtu
District Steam Use
7,923,441.7 kBtu
0.6x median
12,791,107.2 kBtu
District Chilled Water Use
171,853,188.4 kBtu
18x median
9,674,280.5 kBtu

* Important Note: Rankings and medians are among included buildings, which are those who reported under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance for the year 2020 with emissions greater than 1,000 metric tons.

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data Covered Buildings (opens in a new tab)

What Should We Do About This?

Practically every building has room to improve with energy efficiency upgrades like insulation, switching to ENERGY STAR rated appliances, and more, but for any buildings with large natural gas use, we recommend one thing: electrify!

In other words, buildings should look to move all on-site uses of fossil fuels (including space heating, water heating, and cooking) to electrically powered systems like industrial grade heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and induction stoves. With Illinois' current electric supply, just using the same amount of energy from electricity, rather than natural gas (aka methane) will dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is because Illinois' grid in 2020 was already 67% carbon-free (see Illinois - Power | DecarbMyState (opens in a new tab)). This has already been done across the country with a variety of buildings, large and small, like the Hotel Marcel (opens in a new tab).

You can help make this a reality by talking to building owners and letting them know that a building's emissions are important to you, and that you want to see their building become fully electric and stop emitting greenhouse gases. Particularly for buildings you have a financial stake in (like your university, work, condo building, or apartment building) your voice in concert with your fellow building users can have a huge impact.

Additional Resources

See some additional resources on improving energy efficiency and understanding this data: