Picaso - 505 East 79th Street

How does Picaso - 505 East 79th Street compare with other multifamily housing buildings in New York City?

The latest disclosures cover 33,022 multifamily housing buildings in New York City, out of 48,310 buildings citywide. Picaso - 505 East 79th Street's ENERGY STAR score of 52 compares with an average of 63 across the 22,829 that report a score; it scores higher than 33% of them and lower than 66%. Its site EUI of 75.8 kBtu/ft² is roughly in line with the average of 74.9 kBtu/ft². Its emissions intensity of 5.2 kgCO₂e/ft² is roughly in line with the group average of 5.2 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 252,387 sq ft, it is about 150% above the average floor area of 100,951 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1963, 11 years later than the group's average year built (1952). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 59,945 multifamily housing buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 70 and a site EUI of 59.0 kBtu/ft².

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 52 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 52 means the building performs better than about 52% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 52 falls in band D — lowest band (1–54). It sits 23 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. Picaso - 505 East 79th Street's 75.8 kBtu/ft² across 252,387 sq ft works out to about 19.1 billion Btu (5,607 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. Its source EUI of 111.2 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 1,333,551 kWh of electricity and 145,899 therms of natural gas for the year.

Which law requires Picaso - 505 East 79th Street to report its energy use?

Picaso - 505 East 79th 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:4908310:2024). 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.