Energy price volatility has dominated headlines for months, with the war in Iran and power-hungry data centers driving up energy costs across the country.

In the face of those challenges, one Chicago developer is turning to about 22 miles of geothermal piping — a length only slightly shorter than the Chicago Marathon — to power an all-electric Fulton Market apartment project aiming to future-proof its energy needs and prove the concept at a large scale. 

The project has eliminated the need for fossil fuels and solely relies on the grid, Tree Street Group principal Ted Weldon said. The building saves 390 tons of carbon annually as well as about 1 megawatt of power, he estimated. 

“We're also using significantly less electricity to heat and cool our building than we would have otherwise done,” Weldon said. “We don't have to worry about the future, where we might have to retrofit our building to all-electric because it is all-electric to start out, and it's super efficient in the way we provide our energy.”  

Tree Street Group, Magellan Development Group and Mark Goodman & Associates are currently developing the first phase of 410 N. Elizabeth St., a two-tower multifamily project slated to bring a total of 724 units to Fulton Market. The first tower will include 383 apartment units.

The building’s geothermal design, developed by Infinite Energy Partners, will reduce energy usage by up to 60% and produce 25% in energy cost savings, according to the developers. 

The project’s first phase has 65 geothermal wells on the site, with each well going about 850 feet underground. Each well takes a little over two days to drill, and the piping in the wells connects back to a central geothermal system. 

The system uses the ground as a thermal battery, circulating water through heat pumps to transfer heat to the ground in the summer and withdraw it in the winter. The ground’s relatively consistent temperature allows the building to efficiently swap between heating and cooling. 

Adoption of the technology at scale is still nascent — about 1% of buildings in the U.S. have a geothermal heat pump, according to Facility Executive. The energy play helps save on heating and cooling costs, which are the largest single source of energy demand in commercial buildings and make up more than 40% of energy consumption, according to the outlet.  

“This technology's been around for a long time, and there are thousands of examples of this in the United States, but not at this scale in an urban building,” Weldon said. “We believe this is going to really make it a lot easier to get these things financed.”

Weldon said geothermal energy has become more viable at a large scale because the speed of drilling technology has improved and heat pumps have become more efficient as well. He said the geothermal play also makes it easier to meet evolving energy codes, which require large-scale buildings to use less energy. 

The project is about to begin vertical construction and has a targeted completion date of March 2028, Weldon said. The goal is to start the second phase of the project about a year after the first phase to time leasing cycles, he said. 

In the project’s second phase, Weldon believes they’ll be able to drill the geothermal wells more efficiently, cutting down on overall construction time. 

Lessons learned in the process of developing 410 N. Elizabeth will help as Weldon evaluates Chicago sites for other deals over the next couple of years. Any sites over about 30K SF with a large podium and proper soil conditions could be a fit, he said. 

“We'll look for sites that are large enough to do geothermal, and they're not much,” Weldon said. “Almost every building in Chicago can do geothermal.”