490 East 138 Street

How does 490 East 138 Street compare with other worship facility buildings in New York City?

The latest disclosures cover 370 worship facility buildings in New York City, out of 48,310 buildings citywide. 490 East 138 Street's ENERGY STAR score of 72 compares with an average of 43 across the 224 that report a score; it scores higher than 79% of them and lower than 20%. Its site EUI of 37.2 kBtu/ft² is about 41% below the average of 62.6 kBtu/ft² — it uses less energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 2.3 kgCO₂e/ft² is about half of the group average of 4.6 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 25,811 sq ft, it is about 42% below the average floor area of 44,868 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1921, 16 years earlier than the group's average year built (1937). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 1,035 worship facility buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 50 and a site EUI of 47.8 kBtu/ft².

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 72 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 72 means the building performs better than about 72% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 72 falls in band B — above median (70–84). It sits 3 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. 490 East 138 Street's 37.2 kBtu/ft² across 25,811 sq ft works out to about 1 billion Btu (281 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. Its source EUI of 47.1 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 34,760 kWh of electricity, 8,421 therms of natural gas and 151 thousand gallons of water for the year.

Which law requires 490 East 138 Street to report its energy use?

490 East 138 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:54330492:2024). 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.