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While movie fans await the reopening of the AMC theater at Church Street and Maple Avenue, a solar panel array has quietly been installed on the roof high overhead.
When the system is switched on in the next few weeks, it will add 540 kilowatts of capacity for clean renewable energy to a rooftop right in the heart of downtown Evanston.
The Church Street Plaza complex, which occupies an entire block of Maple, from Church to Clark Street, was originally built in 2000. Last fall, when the building was purchased by Continuum Development, the real estate arm of Chicago-based investment firm Continuum Capital, an inspection found the roof was nearing the end of its lifespan.
That presented an opportunity, said Continuum co-founder Evan Meador.
“We looked at all that unused space up there and thought this is a great opportunity to integrate a solar array with the roof replacement,” Meador said in a recent phone call.
With the movie theater renovation already disrupting business as usual, the timing was good. They moved ahead, replacing the aging roof with a reflective solar-ready roof, then installing bifacial solar panels. These panels produce electricity from both direct sunlight and light reflected off the new roof. “It has been a very efficient project,” Meador said.
The panels will power all the base building systems, according to Meador. A junction box will make it possible to switch power over to the new building proposed for the northern half of the block at 900 Clark St. if it’s approved.
Like other renewable energy projects, this one came at a challenging time for the solar industry, with tariffs adding to the cost of panels and federal tax incentives ending. That didn’t stop the Church Street Plaza project, though.
“Every situation obviously has to be looked at differently,” Meador said. “But for a building of our size that is a little bit older, updating the sustainability profile to complement and do our best to future proof for evolving local policy, like the Healthy Buildings Ordinance, was a no brainer. On a more macro level, this allows us to insulate our property from the consistent trend of rising energy costs. I think that’s something all owners should consider.”
The solar installation is an example of making the most of an opportunity, Joel Freeman, a member of the city’s Healthy Buildings Technical Committee, wrote in an email to the RoundTable.
“New construction and reroofing are optimal timing windows to make the investment in sustainable improvements, rather than postponing for a less than optimal (especially cost wise) future retrofit,” Freeman said.
Evanston’s Healthy Buildings Ordinance focuses on reducing emissions from the biggest buildings in the city over the next 25 years. The goal is net-zero building emissions by 2050.
The technical committee recently proposed interim performance targets for sourcing renewable energy to power electric energy use by the buildings covered under the ordinance. All proposed targets are subject to acceptance by the Healthy Buildings Accountability Board and subsequent approval in 2027 by the City Council.
The proposed interim targets for qualifying buildings (559 buildings that meet a 20,000-square-foot threshold) will require property owners to submit renewable energy use data to the city by 2030. They will then have to demonstrate at least 30% renewable energy sourcing by 2040 and 100% renewable energy by 2050.
“Each building covered by the HBO has a unique starting point and a unique path over the next 20+ years to achieve compliance with HBO target goals,” Freeman also wrote in a recent comment on a RoundTable guest essay.
Property owners can fulfill renewable energy requirements by subscribing to community solar, negotiating a power purchase agreement or obtaining credit for renewable energy generated elsewhere.
Another option is to generate clean renewable energy on-site by installing solar photovoltaic systems. Small-scale systems, typically under one megawatt like the one atop the Church Street Plaza building, are called distributed solar PV systems. They’re installed near the point of use, and the electricity they generate is used either on-site or as part of the local grid supply. Under the right conditions, on-site solar can have the most favorable impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs.
Here in Evanston, the big flat rooftops of multistory commercial buildings present opportunities for installing systems like these. The Public Storage facility at Green Bay Road and Simpson Street is one example. This summer, it installed a 408 kilowatt solar panel system, reflecting a trend in the self-storage industry. Another installation, with 98 kilowatt capacity, is under construction atop the PetSmart building at 2221 Oakton St., an employee confirmed last week.
Distributed solar PV systems are becoming an increasingly important part of a mix of strategies for moving away from fossil fuels. “Although [they] typically have lower capacity factors than utility-scale solar systems, they require less land, avoid transmission losses, and enable clean electricity access in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas,” according to Project Drawdown, which ranks solar panels among the most effective options for cutting emissions.
Although the growth of residential solar has slowed, the U.S. Energy Information Agency reported last month that U.S. small-scale solar generation has quadrupled in the last decade. With state and local policies continuing to point the way to a low-carbon future, more businesses seem likely to follow the lead.
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Environment Editor Wendy Pollock, now a steward of the Ladd Arboretum, worked for three decades in the science museum field and served as co-chair of the Evanston Environment Board. More by Wendy Pollock
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The Evanston RoundTable is the community’s leading source of news about local government, schools, civic and artistic activities, and other important issues facing our city. We seek to foster civic engagement and empower people to address complex issues facing our diverse community, promoting a better understanding and appreciation of people of all races, ethnicities, and income levels.
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Evanston, Illinois 60201
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