Chicago gets its first LEED certified hotel

The Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza has just become the Windy City’s first LEED certified lodging property, earning the prestigious LEED Gold Certification for Existing Buildings, Operations & Maintenance by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

LEED certification is the nationally accepted benchmark for design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.

Originally built in 1977, the 521-room hotel is part of the 2.25-million-square-foot, 25-story 350 West Mart Center which has also been awarded LEED Gold certification.

The hotel’s recent $20 million redesign included extensive ecological measures, including a solar film on many of its windows to reduce solar heat gain and reduce air-conditioning load on the building. The installation of this solar film will also create a better thermal climate in many areas of the hotel.

Beyond changes to the actual physical characteristics of the building itself, the entire Mart Plaza has adopted a Sustainable Purchasing Policy; giving preference to green products for cleaning supplies, office supplies, furniture, electronic equipment, lamps, and renovation materials in order to reduce environmental impacts of materials acquired for use in the ongoing operations, maintenance, and future upgrades of the hotel.

“We are always striving to better serve our community, our guests and the globe with efforts as aggressive as this redesign and as small as using ‘green’ cleaning products,” says France Langan, director of sales and marketing at the hotel. “This is a priority for the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza.”

With the new policy in place, approximately 60% of facility alterations and additions (renovation) and almost 50% of furniture purchases met third-party LEED sustainability criteria building-wide. Purchasing highlights from the Mart Plaza’s recent redesign project include carpeting certified by the Carpet and Rug institute’s Green Label and Green Label Plus certification systems, chairs and cabinets made with Forest Stewardship Council certified sustainable wood, recycled upholstery fabric, and energy conserving guestroom TVs.

Many additional initiatives such as a Solid Waste Management Policy that requires recycling or other diversion of ongoing consumables, durable goods, facility alterations and additions, and mercury-containing lamps, have been adopted at the hotel.

For more information, visit www.martplaza.com.