ACHS - 531 86 St.

How does ACHS - 531 86 St. compare with other retail store buildings in New York City?

The latest disclosures cover 525 retail store buildings in New York City, out of 48,310 buildings citywide. ACHS - 531 86 St.'s ENERGY STAR score of 98 compares with an average of 62 across the 270 that report a score; it scores higher than 85% of them and lower than 13%. Its site EUI of 17.0 kBtu/ft² is about 77% below the average of 75.0 kBtu/ft² — it uses less energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 1.9 kgCO₂e/ft² is about 71% below the group average of 6.5 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 32,941 sq ft, it is about 60% below the average floor area of 81,524 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1926, 36 years earlier than the group's average year built (1963). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 3,025 retail store buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 73 and a site EUI of 57.7 kBtu/ft².

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 98 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 98 means the building performs better than about 98% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 98 falls in band A — high performer (85–100). Scores of 75 or higher meet the threshold for ENERGY STAR certification; certification itself is a separate, verified application that the disclosure does not record. 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. ACHS - 531 86 St.'s 17.0 kBtu/ft² across 32,941 sq ft works out to about 0.6 billion Btu (164 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. Its source EUI of 45.0 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 149,812 kWh of electricity, 498 therms of natural gas and 27 thousand gallons of water for the year.

Which law requires ACHS - 531 86 St. to report its energy use?

ACHS - 531 86 St. 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:57512960:2024). 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.