The world's largest LEED-certified building

[the urban politician]

Merchandise Mart in Chicago Now World’s Largest LEED Building
12/21/2007

CHICAGO – The City of Chicago has achieved yet another green milestone as Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. (MMPI) has recently announced that the Merchandise Mart building in Chicago has been awarded the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED-EB) silver certification.
At 4.2 million square feet, Merchandise Mart in Chicago is the world’s largest commercial building. In addition, it is now the world’s largest LEED-certified building as well.
http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/...letterID=18567

[left of center]

alright! it must have cost a fortune to bring that turn of the century building to LEED standards. Daley sure has a powerful positive environmental influence on this city.

[mhays]

Not necessarily. LEED-EB Silver can sometimes be achieved by simply doing the paperwork regarding a building that already exists, or by making relatively minor changes. In this case, I'm guessing they put in energy-efficient windows, upgraded the HVAC, and so on. I'm being lazy and not reading more.

The "world's largest commercial building" must mean the Boeing Everett plant isn't commercial. Its square footage is larger, with a ground footprint well over 100 acres, some multilevel spaces and a roof around 100' over the whole thing. I believe it's 472,000,000 cubic feet. That said, the Merchandise Mart is an unbelievably cool building.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by mhays

The "world's largest commercial building" must mean the Boeing Everett plant isn't commercial.

Manufacturing plants are industrial. Offices, shopping centres, shops, etc are commercial. The Pentagon is a lot bigger than the Merchandise Mart Building, but since it's government offices it would count as institutional.

Is the Merchandise Mart Building bigger than any office skyscraper around the world? Just goes to show that you don't really need high rises for high density.

[mhays]

I agree that that's common usage in the RE world, but it's still semantics, and the dividing lines vary depending on who you ask. They sure do in the various magazine surveys and RFPs I deal with regarding our projects.