The goal of this thesis is to compare the effects of restoring a historic building versus the process of demolition and new construction for the same typology. By quantifying the embodied energy put into the historic materials and energy lost through the demolition process it will create a benchmark to compare the energy used in new construction. Due to the immensely broad nature of building design, the Harris Machinery building in Minneapolis will be used as the building of choice to analyze for data. It will also be used in the hypothetical restoration or as the new construction site, based on the results of the research.