If you own commercial or multifamily buildings in Denver, Energize Denver probably reaches some of them. This checklist covers what an owner gathers, building by building, so each reporting cycle starts from clean records.
It explains what the city says and how to organize around it. It is not legal advice, and it cannot tell you whether a building meets the city’s requirements; the city decides that. Confirm current deadlines and rules with the City of Denver before every cycle.
What the city says
The City of Denver says Energize Denver applies to commercial and multifamily buildings in Denver that are 5,000 square feet and larger. It sets different requirements for small buildings, from 5,000 to 24,999 square feet, and for large buildings, 25,000 square feet and larger (City of Denver, Energize Denver).
That splits any Denver portfolio into three groups:
| Building size | Group | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Under 5,000 sq ft | Below the stated threshold | Record the floor area and its source |
| 5,000 to 24,999 sq ft | Small building | Read the city’s small building requirements |
| 25,000 sq ft and larger | Large building | Read the city’s large building requirements |
The city’s page is the source for what each group must do and when. Programs like this are updated, so read the page at the start of each cycle rather than relying on last year’s notes.
List every building first
Start with a list, not a filing. For each Denver property, record:
- street address and any building name
- gross floor area, with its source: drawings, assessor record or lease exhibit
- primary use: office, retail, warehouse, multifamily and so on
- the legal entity that owns it
- its size group from the table above
Treat floor area with care near the thresholds. A building measured at 24,600 square feet on one document and 25,300 on another sits on either side of a line. Pick one source, write down why, and use it every year.
Campuses and connected buildings need a decision too. Check how the city treats them before you set up any records.
Decide who answers for each building
The owner, a property manager and the tenants may all touch the data. For each building, write down:
- who receives city notices, and at which mailbox
- who holds the utility accounts: owner, tenants or both
- who enters the data, and who reviews it
- who signs off before anything is submitted
Use a shared company mailbox for city correspondence, not one person’s inbox. People change jobs; buildings stay where they are.
Set up Portfolio Manager properly
Benchmarking is typically done in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager; confirm the city’s current submission steps on its page. ENERGY STAR says nearly 25% of U.S. commercial building space is already actively benchmarking in Portfolio Manager (ENERGY STAR, Benchmark your building), so verifiers and property managers are likely to know the tool.
The account should belong to the owner, not to a consultant. Set up one property per building, using the floor area and use from your list, and share access with whoever enters or reviews data. Our note on setting up Portfolio Manager for many sites covers naming, sharing and meters in detail.
If the city has assigned a building an identifier, record it on the property and in your list. One ID, used everywhere, keeps a filing from landing on the wrong building.
Collect every meter and fuel
A building’s energy use is every meter serving it, not just the meters the owner pays.
- Electric. Owner meters for common areas, and tenant meters for suites.
- Gas. Often fewer meters, sometimes shared across buildings.
- District energy. Steam or chilled water, where a building uses it.
- Water. Check whether the city asks for it for your building’s size group.
Tenant-paid meters are the usual gap. Ask your utility how it provides whole-building data to owners, and start that request early. A building with 30 tenant meters and no access to their data cannot produce a whole-building number.
Mapping matters here as much as it does in bill auditing. A meter assigned to the wrong building puts its use in the wrong report. A Peg Baseline maps every meter to a site in writing, and that same map is the one a benchmarking file needs.
Check the data before submitting
Run these checks on each building before anything leaves your hands:
- Every meter has 12 full months, with no gaps and no overlapping bills.
- Estimated reads flagged, and replaced with actual reads where they exist.
- Units consistent: kWh rather than MWh, therms rather than hundreds of cubic feet, unless entered that way on purpose.
- Floor area matching your building list, with any change explained.
- Energy use per square foot compared with last year, and any large swing explained.
A swing of 30% with no change at the building deserves a data check before anyone assumes the building changed. The usual suspects are a missing meter, a bill entered twice, or a units error. The bill audit checklist covers the same read-date and estimated-read checks at the bill level.
Plan for verification
Where the city requires third-party data verification, it is done by a qualified verifier as the city defines one. The verifier should never be the same person who entered the data. Check the city’s page for which buildings need verification, in which years, and who qualifies.
Verification fees are separate from the work of preparing benchmarking data. Budget them per building, alongside the preparation cost.
Put the dates on one calendar
Take the current dates from the city’s page, not from memory or last year’s email. Put them on a shared calendar, with a named owner for each step.
If any of your buildings are 50,000 square feet or larger, check the state program as well. The Colorado Energy Office says Building Performance Colorado applies to most commercial buildings of that size, with benchmarking reports and fees due November 1 each year (Colorado Energy Office, Building Performance Colorado). Confirm with the Colorado Energy Office whether and how it applies to each building.
Our compliance calendar lays out a month-by-month plan around both programs. Only the November 1 state date is fixed there; the rest is recommended practice.
Keep a record of each cycle
When a cycle closes, file what you sent and what came back. A year from now, the first question will be what was submitted last time, and nobody should have to guess.
For each building, keep:
- the confirmation of submission, with its date
- an export of the data as submitted
- the verifier’s report, where verification was required
- any correspondence with the city, including questions and answers
- a note of anything that changed: floor area, use, meters or owner
Store it with the building list, not in someone’s email. If a building is sold, the file goes to the new owner with the keys.
What a clean checklist gives you
When the list, the owners, the account, the meters and the checks are in place, each cycle repeats known steps instead of starting over. The same records show which buildings use the most energy per square foot, which is where capital planning starts.
They also make staff changes survivable. A new facilities manager can pick up a building list with sources, a shared mailbox and a meter map. Nobody can pick up a former colleague’s memory.
Where to start
A Benchmarking Filing sets up Portfolio Manager in your name and prepares each building’s annual filing, from $950 per building a year, with verification fees extra. For planning beyond the filing, our clean energy advisory work turns the benchmarking numbers into a dated plan. Either way, confirm the current rules and deadlines with the City of Denver.
