Here’s the thing:
Nationwide, the biggest single source of emissions is transportation, dominated by low-occupancy cars and trucks. But in New York, most people use mass transit instead of driving. That means buildings “are by far the largest source” of climate pollution in the city, said Christopher Halfnight, senior director of research and policy at the Urban Green Council, a nonprofit focused on energy efficiency in buildings. Gas- and oil-burning furnaces and water heaters are together responsible for 40% of NYC emissions, according to Halfnight.
In response to this, New York City has been passing laws that restrict greenhouse gases and that by and large incentivize electrification. One of these is Local Law 97, which will generally require buildings over 25,000 sf to reduce their GHG emissions by 40% (relative to 2005) by 2030.
Already the market is responding. Alloy Development has just completed the city’s first all-electric tower at 505 State Street in Brooklyn. Tenants began moving in on April 5.
When team members asked what the complex would look like absent gas, the answers were fairly straightforward. “Instead of a gas boiler, an electric boiler; instead of a gas cooktop, it was an induction cooktop. And literally that was it,” said Pires, noting that they had to revise the design of the electrical room to allow for higher amperage, since more incoming electricity would be needed for a larger electrical load.
Some, or perhaps many, in the industry are fighting these new laws. In 2022, a co-op in Queens apparently went to the New York Supreme Court. But directionally, this certainly looks to be where we are headed. So you can either fight it, or you can try and get ahead of it, as Alloy has done here.
For more information on 505 State Street, go here (Bloomberg) and here (project website).
BRANDON DONNELLY 
Before I give Alloy a standing ovation, I would like to know one thing: where is the power for the tower coming from? Is it from a so-called dirty source (coal or natural gas) or from a wasteful source, that being hydroelectric from Quebec (because sending electricity great distances causes significant line loss)? Or might it be from a nuclear plant? Seems to me that what we have here is a group of people who have come together to congratulate themselves, demonstrating that they are more virtuous than everybody else. One has to work really hard to keep up this ruse. Fifteen years ago, I stopped recommending solar panels to clients when I discovered that the average life expectancy of a solar panel factory worker was less than 60 years. It didn’t seem right to me that other people should live less while the rest of us offered congratulatory murmurs at the launch parties of new buildings.
I’m not surprised to read that Bloomberg News is twirling the baton for this parade; I recall that Michael Bloomberg tried to make New Yorkers skinnier by legislating supersize drinks out of existence. He a prime example of a person who knows what’s best for all of us. I wish him luck trying to persuade me (and many others) that an electric stove is good for anything more than reheating Kraft Dinner.
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I do not disagree that this is the direction we are headed, but I am old enough to remember that when I first moved to Toronto from the US, the government was offering huge incentives for people to convert from electric baseboard heaters to gas heating…just saying…:-)
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