The U.S. Energy Information Administration has posted preliminary results from its periodic Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption survey. Data for the project were collected in 2012 and detailed analyses of energy consumption will be released beginning next spring. The project includes buildings >1,000 sf that devote more than half of their floorspace to activity that is not residential, manufacturing, industrial, or agricultural.
The preliminary results from the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) show that there were 5.6 million commercial buildings in the United States in 2012, comprising 87.4 billion square feet of floorspace. This represents a 14% increase in the number of buildings and a 22% increase in floorspace since 2003, the last year for which CBECS results are available.
The preliminary data can be found in this summary table of building counts and total square footage by building size category, principal building activity, year of construction category, Census region, and Census division. The first tab provides the estimates; the second tab on the table provides relative standard errors (RSEs) for the estimates.
For comparison, there is a similar summary table from the 2003 CBECS. Other file formats for the same table can be accessed from the 2003 CBECS data page.
The size, use, vintage, and geographic region of a building are among the key determinants that influence its energy use. Subsequent releases will show more detailed characteristics and crosstabulations among key categories. This is the first release of many reports and data releases expected for the 2012 CBECS; these preliminary tables provide a first look at the building stock and the attributes that drive commercial energy use.
Trends – 1979 to 2012: Growth in building size outpaces increases in building stock
Since the first CBECS was conducted in 1979 to the current 2012 CBECS, the number of buildings has increased from 3.8 million to 5.6 million, and the amount of commercial floorspace has increased from 51 billion to 87 billion square feet.
HOW DOES EIA PRODUCE RELIABLE RESULTS FROM A SAMPLE SURVEY?
The CBECS is a national sample survey. See How Were Buildings Selected for the 2012 CBECS? for an overview of the sampling process. After the sample was selected, preparations for the interviewing phase began. In April 2013, about 250 field interviewers were trained to visit buildings across the United States and recruit respondents knowledgeable about energy use in the buildings. After recruiting a respondent at a building, the field interviewer’s job was to conduct an interview on a laptop computer asking questions about the building’s structure, use, energy equipment, and energy use. Between April and November 2013, interviews were conducted in-person or by telephone at over 6,500 buildings nationwide. Because every building had a chance to be selected and that chance is known, a sample weight can be assigned to each case. The resulting dataset is representative of the entire U.S. commercial building population.
Principal building activities: The most prevalent building types account for the majority of the total buildings and floorspace, while the building types with the largest average buildings are less common in the building stock
The commercial building sector is characterized by diversity. The 2012 survey identified more than 100 subcategories of building activity, which are aggregated into the 14 principal building activities shown in the summary table and in the figures below. CBECS includes buildings as small and singular in activity as a freestanding bank or fast food restaurant, to buildings as large and complex as an office building with hundreds of tenants or a major airport terminal. CBECS also includes vacant buildings; some vacant buildings use energy, either for maintenance purposes or because a small amount of space is still used in the building1.
Among the general building activities, lodging, education, and health care are the largest buildings, on average. The health care category's average is greatly affected by the size of inpatient health care buildings (i.e., hospitals), which have an average size of 247,700 square feet per building, compared to outpatient health care buildings, which have an average size of 12,100 square feet.
Figure 4 tracks changes in the building stock over the past 10 years by comparing the number of buildings for each principal building activity from 2003 to 2012. The highest percent of growth was in vacant buildings and other types of buildings, which includes buildings such as airplane hangars, laboratories and data centers. Warehouses, food service buildings, public assembly, and office buildings also increased between 2003 and 2012, while food sales buildings (e.g., grocery and convenience stores) showed a decrease,2 and mercantile (retail and malls) showed a decrease, although it is not statistically significant. Because CBECS is a sample survey, each estimate has sampling error associated with it, which should be considered when comparing estimates. See What is an RSE? and Estimation of Standard Errors for more information.
Size of buildings: Although there are relatively few very large buildings (over 100,000 square feet of floorspace), they account for more than one-third of total commercial building floorspace
Commercial buildings are often depicted showing a skyline of towering buildings. However, the vast majority of commercial buildings are relatively small. Just less than half of buildings are 5,000 square feet in size or smaller, and nearly three-fourths are 10,000 square feet or smaller. The median building size is 5,100 square feet (i.e., half the buildings are larger than this and half are smaller), while the average size is 15,700 square feet. The average is larger than the median because of the influence of a small number of very large buildings; buildings over 100,000 square feet make up only about 2% of the building count but about 35% of the total floorspace.
Year constructed: The commercial building stock is middle-aged, and newer buildings are larger than older ones
Commercial buildings remain in use for many decades. Although about 12% of commercial buildings (comprising 14% of commercial floorspace) were built in the past 10 years, the commercial building stock is still fairly old, with about half of all buildings constructed at least 35 years ago. However, in the existing building stock, there are more buildings built in the 2000s than buildings built prior to 1946.
Newer buildings tend to be larger than older buildings. The average building size for those constructed before 1960 is 12,000 square feet; buildings constructed between 1960 and 1999 average 16,300 square feet; and buildings constructed in the 2000s average 19,100 square feet. The differences between these average building sizes are statistically significant.
Census region and division (see map): The South has the most commercial buildings, but the Northeast has the largest commercial buildings
The South Census region, the most populous of the four Census regions, has the largest percentage of commercial buildings and commercial floorspace, with about 40% of both total buildings and floorspace. The Midwest and West regions each account for more than one-fifth of commercial buildings and floorspace.
Buildings in the Northeast region are, on average, 4,000 to 5,000 square feet larger than buildings in the other regions. The Northeast region includes the Middle Atlantic division (New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey), where buildings average 22,400 square feet.
Footnote
1 CBECS principal building activity is defined as the activity occupying the most floorspace. Respondents are first asked if there is one activity that occupies 75% or more of the floorspace. If not, CBECS collects the top three building activities and their corresponding percents and the principal activity is assigned as the one comprising the most floorspace.
2 Estimates for number of food sales buildings can be somewhat misleading because grocery stores and convenience stores are often part of strip malls and therefore included in the "Enclosed and strip malls" category in CBECS. "Enclosed and strip malls" is a subcategory of "Mercantile" and is shown in the summary table.
Specific questions on this product may be directed to Joelle Michaels.
Related Stories
| Jan 4, 2011
Product of the Week: Zinc cladding helps border crossing blend in with surroundings
Zinc panels provide natural-looking, durable cladding for an administrative building and toll canopies at the newly expanded Queenstown Plaza U.S.-Canada border crossing at the Niagara Gorge. Toronto’s Moriyama & Teshima Architects chose the zinc alloy panels for their ability to blend with the structures’ scenic surroundings, as well as for their low maintenance and sustainable qualities. The structures incorporate 14,000 sf of Rheinzink’s branded Angled Standing Seam and Reveal Panels in graphite gray.
| Jan 4, 2011
6 green building trends to watch in 2011
According to a report by New York-based JWT Intelligence, there are six key green building trends to watch in 2011, including: 3D printing, biomimicry, and more transparent and accurate green claims.
| Jan 4, 2011
LEED standards under fire in NYC
This year, for the first time, owners of 25,000 commercial properties in New York must report their buildings’ energy use to the city. However, LEED doesn’t measure energy use and costs, something a growing number of engineers, architects, and landlords insist must be done. Their concerns and a general blossoming of environmental awareness have spawned a host of rating systems that could test LEED’s dominance.
| Jan 4, 2011
LEED 2012: 10 changes you should know about
The USGBC is beginning its review and planning for the next version of LEED—LEED 2012. The draft version of LEED 2012 is currently in the first of at least two public comment periods, and it’s important to take a look at proposed changes to see the direction USGBC is taking, the plans they have for LEED, and—most importantly—how they affect you.
| Jan 4, 2011
California buildings: now even more efficient
New buildings in California must now be more sustainable under the state’s Green Building Standards Code, which took effect with the new year. CALGreen, the first statewide green building code in the country, requires new buildings to be more energy efficient, use less water, and emit fewer pollutants, among many other requirements. And they have the potential to affect LEED ratings.
| Jan 4, 2011
New Years resolutions for architects, urban planners, and real estate developers
Roger K. Lewis, an architect and a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, writes in the Washington Post about New Years resolutions he proposes for anyone involved in influencing buildings and cities. Among his proposals: recycle and reuse aging or obsolete buildings instead of demolishing them; amend or eliminate out-of-date, obstructive, and overly complex zoning ordinances; and make all city and suburban streets safe for cyclists and pedestrians.
| Jan 4, 2011
An official bargain, White House loses $79 million in property value
One of the most famous office buildings in the world—and the official the residence of the President of the United States—is now worth only $251.6 million. At the top of the housing boom, the 132-room complex was valued at $331.5 million (still sounds like a bargain), according to Zillow, the online real estate marketplace. That reflects a decline in property value of about 24%.
| Jan 4, 2011
Luxury hotel planned for Palace of Versailles
Want to spend the night at the Palace of Versailles? The Hotel du Grand Controle, a 1680s mansion built on palace grounds for the king's treasurer and vacant since the French Revolution, will soon be turned into a luxury hotel. Versailles is partnering with Belgian hotel company Ivy International to restore the dilapidated estate into a 23-room luxury hotel. Guests can live like a king or queen for a while—and keep their heads.
| Jan 4, 2011
Grubb & Ellis predicts commercial real estate recovery
Grubb & Ellis Company, a leading real estate services and investment firm, released its 2011 Real Estate Forecast, which foresees the start of a slow recovery in the leasing market for all property types in the coming year.
| Jan 4, 2011
Furniture Sustainability Standard - Approved by ANSI and Released for Distribution
BIFMA International recently announced formal American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approval and release of the ANSI/BIFMA e3-2010 Furniture Sustainability Standard. The e3 standard represents a structured methodology to evaluate the "sustainable" attributes of furniture products and constitutes the technical criteria of the level product certification program.
