Salem Building Performance Standard

Salem owns something almost no other Oregon city can claim: the largest concentration of state government buildings in Oregon, plus Oregon State Hospital, plus a significant food processing industrial base. All three of those categories sit directly in the crosshairs of the Oregon Building Performance Standard — and the buildings in them are among the most energy-intensive in the state.

If you own, manage, or oversee capital planning for a Salem commercial building 35,000 square feet or larger, ORS 330-300 applies to you, and the compliance window closes between 2028 and 2030.

Which Salem Buildings Are Covered

State-owned buildings operate on a parallel BPS compliance track managed through the state’s own capital process. But Salem has a very large private and institutional commercial base outside that track that absolutely does need to plan for compliance on the standard timeline:

• Private office buildings in Central Salem, including the 63+ office listings in the downtown commercial inventory
• Salem Health hospital and outpatient buildings, medical office buildings, and affiliated private clinics above the threshold
• Private K-12 and higher-education buildings, including Corban University and the private portions of the Salem-Keizer school district
• Food processing and manufacturing facilities — Kettle Foods, NORPAC, and the broader Marion County food processing cluster all have facilities captured by the mandate
• Retail anchors and neighborhood shopping centers
• Hotels and larger multifamily buildings
• Warehouse and distribution buildings along the I-5 corridor and in the Northgate industrial area

The honest answer on state-owned buildings: if you’re a state facilities manager, talk to the Department of Administrative Services about your internal BPS program. If you’re a private owner with a building leased to a state agency, the private owner still bears compliance responsibility.

The Salem Commercial Landscape

Salem Data Point	Figure
City population (2026)	~182,620
County	Marion
Commercial real estate inventory	~4.25M sq ft tracked across ~287 properties
Office inventory	2.11M sq ft
Retail inventory	2.95M sq ft
Industrial inventory	2.11M sq ft
Electric utility	Portland General Electric (PGE)
Largest institutional employer	State of Oregon
Notable industrial anchors	Oregon State Hospital, Kettle Foods, NORPAC

Salem adopted a Climate Action Plan in October 2020 targeting 50 percent GHG emissions reduction by 2035 and net zero by 2050. The city is also running Oregon’s first community microgrid project in Southeast Salem with $1 million from the Oregon Department of Energy. That project matters because it signals that Salem is serious about the energy side of its commercial building stock, not just the vehicle and residential sides — and local policy pressure tends to reinforce state BPS pressure.

What Compliance Actually Requires

The Oregon BPS compliance sequence has three main deliverables:

1. Benchmarking — Annual energy use intensity reporting to the Oregon Department of Energy. The first benchmarking submission was due January 2025.
2. ASHRAE Level 2 Energy Audit — A structured engineering analysis of the building’s envelope, HVAC, lighting, controls, plug loads, and domestic hot water, with a life-cycle cost assessment on every recommended energy conservation measure. This is where the real technical work happens.
3. Form Q Compliance Report — The final compliance package submitted to ODOE documenting the audit findings, the LCCA results, and the building’s compliance pathway.

The deadline for the full Form Q package is staggered by building tier: Tier 1 buildings must comply by 2028, Tier 2 by 2030. Which tier your specific building falls in depends on size and use category, and ODOE has published the tier assignments.

Salem-Specific Incentive Stack

Energy Trust of Oregon offers up to $0.85 per square foot in incentives for BPS-related audit and implementation work. Since Salem is served by PGE, Energy Trust applies directly. For a 75,000 square foot Salem office building, that’s up to $63,750 in incentive money — more than the full $13,500 flat fee we’d charge for the audit itself, with substantial dollars left for actual measure implementation. PGE also runs its own commercial efficiency rebate program for specific equipment categories, which stacks on top of Energy Trust in many cases.

Our Flat Fee Schedule

We don’t bill hourly and we don’t take a percentage of identified savings. Your fee is set the day we scope the project:

• 35,000–50,000 sq ft: $7,500
• 50,000–75,000 sq ft: $10,000
• 75,000–100,000 sq ft: $13,500
• 100,000–150,000 sq ft: $17,500
• 150,000+ sq ft: custom quote

Building Types We Work With in Salem

Common Salem BPS projects we’re set up to handle:

• Downtown Salem office buildings (historic and modern stock)
• Salem Health-affiliated medical office buildings
• Private hospital and outpatient facilities
• Food processing and beverage manufacturing plants
• Larger retail anchors and shopping center pads
• Hotels and lodging
• Warehouse and distribution buildings
• Private educational and institutional facilities

Benchmarking Is Due. The Audit Is Next.

Salem building owners have a narrow window. If your building’s benchmarking data isn’t yet filed with ODOE, that’s step one. If it is, the next move is scoping the ASHRAE Level 2 audit on a timeline that gives you room to implement recommended measures before the 2028 or 2030 compliance deadline.

Email Mike at vanvicklebros@gmail.com with your building address, square footage, and primary use, and we’ll send back a flat fee, a realistic timeline, and a read on how much Energy Trust of Oregon is likely to cover. You can also review our pricing schedule or read about how the audit process works.