Oak Park approves $100,000 agreement with University of Illinois for commercial building energy assessments

Lindsay Roland Noraca, chief sustainability officer, presented a proposed agreement with the University of Illinois Smart Energy Design Assistance Center to continue a green business program and expand it to connect commercial tenants with property owners for deeper retrofit work.

She said the program will conduct five in‑depth building assessments representing different commercial building types, use the findings to create educational programming (webinars, recorded materials and in‑person sessions) and help support compliance with Oak Park's benchmarking ordinance. "One of the primary baselines that we're looking for is that they are buildings that are already benchmarking through our benchmarking ordinance," Roland Noraca said.

The board discussed how the five representative building assessments will be selected and how materials will be made broadly available. Staff said the assessments are intended to produce representative building profiles that can be adapted for similar building types across Oak Park; webinars and recorded materials will be available online for landlords and tenants.

The board approved the sponsored services agreement with the University of Illinois in an amount not to exceed $100,000. Clerk Waters recorded a unanimous roll call in favor.

Ending: Staff said they will use benchmarking data to identify candidate buildings and will report back on outreach and participation as the program begins.