• Posted: January 29, 2019
• Safety, Training

If you take a walk through Chicago’s downtown streets, one thing is evident right away: the city is in the midst of a construction boom. From new high-rise buildings that will house some of the country’s premier businesses, to new apartment and condominium buildings, Chicago’s skyline is being reshaped and redesigned.

“In 2017 we issued over 48,000 permits and in 2018 we are on track to be close to last year’s record-breaking total,” said Judith Frydland, Commissioner of the Department of Buildings for the City of Chicago. “Over the last two years we’ve had an average of 60 tower cranes operating in the city – marking a 400 percent increase since 2010.”

All those cranes and construction projects are directly translating to corporate growth, too. According to the magazine Site Selection, in 2018 Chicago ranked #1 in the United States in terms of corporate relocation and investment for a fifth consecutive year by beating out cities like Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and New York.

To keep up with this ongoing construction boom, the city’s building department, led by Ms. Frydland, knew it had to keep everything up to date. So last fall, Chicago became one of the first major cities to align with the 2017 national electrical code.

“The electrical code had not been updated since 1989, whereas the national code is updated every three years,” Frydland explained. “We kept falling behind, especially for national standards in sustainable technology, including solar power and other renewable energy and storage.”

Chicago, like other major metropolitan cities, has unique challenges when piecing together electrical codes. Because Chicago is so dense – and proper electrical work must always be done – it was important for the city to get the right balance from the national and local codes.

“Though we aligned the two codes, we kept in place what Chicago has been doing best,” Frydland said. “We kept safety in mind, including strict requirements for the use of metal conduit and emergency lighting and generators. This is important to Chicago because of how dense the city is and the risk of fire spreading rapidly.”

In addition, the code brings new energy efficiency to Chicago’s building industry, improves safety requirements, keeps residents safe, and can lower costs for residents and businesses.

The updated code has made it easier for permits to be processed and construction to continue as well, but getting to this point took time. It was only after a 14-year hiatus that the electrical commission came back together to update the code that went into effect in 2018.

But according to Frydland, there are more changes on the horizon.

“Building on the update from the electrical code, we are now going to do an update to the building code. We hope to have the building code by spring 2019.”