639 West 46th Street

How does 639 West 46th Street compare with other non-refrigerated warehouse buildings in New York City?

The latest disclosures cover 639 non-refrigerated warehouse buildings in New York City, out of 48,310 buildings citywide. 639 West 46th Street's ENERGY STAR score of 21 compares with an average of 57 across the 455 that report a score; it scores higher than 16% of them and lower than 83%. Its site EUI of 57.7 kBtu/ft² is about 47% above the average of 39.3 kBtu/ft² — it uses more energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 4.1 kgCO₂e/ft² is about 31% above the group average of 3.1 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 25,100 sq ft, it is about 70% below the average floor area of 83,240 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1940, 13 years earlier than the group's average year built (1953). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 4,723 non-refrigerated warehouse buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 66 and a site EUI of 26.0 kBtu/ft².

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 21 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 21 means the building performs better than about 21% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 21 falls in band D — lowest band (1–54). It sits 54 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. 639 West 46th Street's 57.7 kBtu/ft² across 25,100 sq ft works out to about 1.4 billion Btu (424 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. Its source EUI of 88.7 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 118,301 kWh of electricity and 10,443 therms of natural gas for the year.

Which law requires 639 West 46th Street to report its energy use?

639 West 46th 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:63967793:2024). 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.