After receiving recognition at the local and regional level, an Elara Engineering new construction project – 3833 North Broadway Urban Geothermal Multi-Family – has received ASHRAE’s highest honor; a first place International-Level Award.
This project represents Elara’s fourth International-Level ASHRAE award and we congratulate our team of dedicated experts: Don McLauchlan, Dustin Langille, Bhupendra Tailor, Nick Capretta, and Mark Rockwood, for their contributions to this internationally recognized project. We also thank the owner, managers, and staff of 3833 North Broadway for their commitment to this highly sustainable, energy efficient project and for the trust and confidence they had in Elara Engineering to bring it to completion.
3833 North Broadway Urban Geothermal – New Construction
- MEPFP design of 8-story, 228,960 square foot apartment building with 134 residential units, indoor heated parking, retail spaces (20,777 sf), fitness center, community area, outdoor running track
- Geothermal heating and cooling, solar PV, exhaust air heat recovery, shower drain heat recovery, sidewalk snowmelt and demand control strategies
- Actual EUI: 22 kbtu/ft²
Key Innovations
- 60-well geothermal field located underneath the building structure on a limited urban site.
- Detailed energy modeling along with a parametric analysis allowed for careful sizing of the geothermal field to minimize project costs.
- Detailed modeling reduced the field size by an estimated 40% over standard designs for geothermal systems in Chicago
- The simplicity of the design allowed the building owner to assume portions of the project management duties and to utilize several contractors that had worked on previous smaller projects with them. This resulted in project costs well below similar projects in Chicago.
- The building’s low actual EUI of 22 kbtu/ft² saves $159,555/year over the baseline model EUI of 44 kbtu/ft².
- The geothermal cost of approximately $500,000 is offset in just three years compared to the baseline building (1.5 years when compared to a typical Chicago new construction building), not including any avoided costs such as large central chiller/boiler plants.
- Energy savings result in an approximate annual reduction of 1,115 metric tons of C02; the equivalent of removing 242 passenger cars or 134 homes from the energy grid.
With careful planning and a simple design, Elara shows that – with this project – buildings can be constructed with sustainable and energy efficient features such as geothermal at competitive costs. Additional project details can be found here.
