Chicago’s Merchandise Mart Using TAC to Help Become Greener

Merchandise Mart, the 4.2 million-square-foot, 24-story historic landmark in downtown Chicago will use TAC developers to help it be part of the Clinton Climate Initiative, it has reported. Dallas-based TAC develops building automated solutions for IT–providing technology for indoor climate, security and energy use. “They are also targeting transportation and other entities, but the biggest impact is definitely from pollution in buildings. It’s pretty innovative for a commercial office property to have as its primary focus to address climate change,” Shon Anderson, vice president at TAC told CPN. What will stand out for this project is that the mart will give tenants the technology that will improve operating efficiency. “Obviously I think it will drive a lot of other energy – when a building that is that high profile makes a move like this it will definitely spur others to action as well,” he added.TAC plans to work on the integration of communication from all the heating, cooling, and energy management systems. Explained Andersen, “Integrating the management of all the systems is a big key. And this building has a lot of large exhibit space. It’s not an office building with little office spaces that are easy to control. It has much more open area and that is more challenging from an environmental control standard.” “In the past in commercial real estate – people viewed investing in energy savings – with a skeptical eye. But now that we’re including the guarantees, it’s quite different. It changes the game a bit. What they would previously view as an expense to the company is now perceived as positive investments,” advised Anderson . As part of the partnership with Climate Initiatives, TAC is working with a number of other commercial property real estate management projects and property owners, high profile buildings in cities such as NYC, Dallas , Kansas City. TAC is also working with a number of educational and governmental agencies on similar projects.