Data Tip: General search instructions for DOB NOW
By Atticus O’Brien-Pappalardo
In this PincusCo Data Tip we will walk through the process of how to find basic information for new building filings in the city’s Department of Building’s DOB NOW public portal.
The portal, in contrast to the legacy DOB Bisweb, does not allow a user to browse for projects. The DOB NOW public portal can only be used to search a particular project.
So if you have a DOB NOW number handy, use that.
Otherwise, to find a job number, navigate to the city’s Open Data portal, to the specific page “DOB NOW: Build – Job Application Filings” Open Data page, found here.
Once inside the open data page, follow these steps:
- Click on the filter button
- From the drop down menu of columns to filter, select “job type”
- In the text bar, write “New Building” and check the small box to the left
The screen should look like this:
From here, feel free to filter more columns to find jobs that fit your specific needs. Useful columns to filter are borough and building type. For example, setting the borough filter to “Brooklyn” and the building type column to “Other” will provide a list of all non-single-family buildings in that borough.
Once you have set parameters to isolate jobs which fit your criteria, look in the first column for the “Job Filing Number”. The following image explains what the filing number means:
For this exercise, we want to isolate filings that are “Initial”, represented by “I1”. Other filing numbers will have numbers such as, “Post Approval Amendment”, represented by “P1”, or “Subsequent”, represented by “S1”.
Once you have chosen a specific filing of interest, take the first nine characters of the job filing number and plug them into the “Job Number Search” bar of the DOB Now Public Portal, which can be found here.
For this example, we will use the job number “M00556884”, which is MRR Development’s August 2021 permit application for construction of a 145-unit, 174,532-square-foot mixed-use building at 126 East 57th Street in the Plaza District.
Once you click search, you will have access to the following drop down options:
Click on the “BUILD: Job Filings” drop down, then click the “New Buildings” tab, before finally clicking the “View Details” box to the left of the job number you searched for.
Once the job file is open, you will have the ability to click on numerous drop down pages, including:
- PW1
- Containing information such as the filing representative, architect, job description, and more
- Zoning Information
- Containing information such as the tax lots, zoning characteristics, size of the building, occupancy, number of units, and more
- Scope of Work
- Similar to BIS’s Schedule A, the Scope of Work contains a breakout of what each floor of the building will consist of.
This post is part of a series on prospecting tips from various public industry data sources. Other posts in the series include how to find developer’s contact information from DOB and how to find the pre-condo lot number for a condo building.
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