40 Thompson Street (15 Watts Street)

How does 40 Thompson Street (15 Watts Street) compare with other office buildings in New York City?

The latest disclosures cover 3,384 office buildings in New York City, out of 48,310 buildings citywide. 40 Thompson Street (15 Watts Street)'s ENERGY STAR score of 37 compares with an average of 72 across the 2,519 that report a score; it scores higher than 11% of them and lower than 89%. Its site EUI of 93.7 kBtu/ft² is about 45% above the average of 64.5 kBtu/ft² — it uses more energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 7.6 kgCO₂e/ft² is about 31% above the group average of 5.8 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 33,499 sq ft, it is about 84% below the average floor area of 205,440 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1928, 12 years earlier than the group's average year built (1940). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 15,264 office buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 73 and a site EUI of 59.3 kBtu/ft².

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 37 mean?

ENERGY STAR scores run from 1 to 100 and are computed by the EPA's Portfolio Manager as a percentile against similar buildings nationwide, adjusted for climate, size and use: a score of 37 means the building performs better than about 37% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 37 falls in band D — lowest band (1–54). It sits 38 points below 75, the threshold for ENERGY STAR certification. In New York City, 43% of scored buildings are at 75 or above.

Site energy-use intensity (EUI) is the energy a building uses on site in a year divided by its floor area, in thousand Btu per square foot — lower is more efficient. 40 Thompson Street (15 Watts Street)'s 93.7 kBtu/ft² across 33,499 sq ft works out to about 3.1 billion Btu (920 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. Its source EUI of 171.7 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 411,125 kWh of electricity and 17,366 therms of natural gas for the year.

Which law requires 40 Thompson Street (15 Watts Street) to report its energy use?

40 Thompson Street (15 Watts Street) reports under Local Law 84 (LL84), the legal basis of New York City's Energy and Water Data Disclosure program, which publishes each covered building's annual benchmarking results. The record shown here is the report-year 2024 disclosure (source record nyc:6672456:2024). Under Local Law 97, buildings over 25,000 sq ft face carbon caps with fines of $268 per metric ton of CO₂e over the limit, phasing in from 2024.