The 521-room Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza is part of the 2.25 million square feet, 25-story 350 West Mart Center which has also been awarded LEED-Gold certification. The Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza is operated by Hostmark Hospitality Group.
The hotel, originally built in 1977, recently underwent a $20 million redesign that included extensive ecological measures including installing solar film on many of its windows to reduce solar heat gain and thus 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.
The Mart Plaza also adopted a sustainable purchasing policy that gives preference to LEED-qualified green products for cleaning supplies, office supplies, furniture, electronic equipment, lamps, and renovation materials. These measures reduce the environmental impacts of materials acquired for use in the ongoing operations, maintenance, and future upgrades of the hotel. In fact, 60% of facility alterations and additions and 48% of furniture purchases met third-party LEED sustainability criteria building-wide.
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.
