Total new building square footage up by 30% in August, driven by small structures
By Atticus O’Brien-Pappalardo
The combined square feet of all new building projects filed with the city’s Department of Buildings increased by 32 percent in August, after having dropped to the lowest monthly total in the past year in July.
The total square feet increased from 1.6 million in July to 2.4 million in August. The total aligns with what NYC was experiencing during the first quarter of 2020, when a monthly average of 2.6 million square feet of new construction was filed for.
The large uptick in April and May was partly due to upcoming changes to the New York City Energy Conservation Code, as PincusCo reported at the time. The ripple effect from the code change can be seen in June and July. As developers shuffled plans to file under the previous code, plans that were lined up for June or July were filed in April and May instead, some insiders said.
PincusCo looked at all new building (NB) filings of 2,000-square-feet and above. For residential buildings, the analysis covered those with four or more units, and did not include residential units in hotel (R-1) buildings.
The total number of residential units filed for in August experienced an even greater percentage increase from July than the growth in square feet. The 2,452 units across all filings was a 56 percent jump from the 1,069 units the month before, compared with the 32 percent increase in square feet. Once again, the total aligned with what was seen in the first quarter, when an average of 2,211 units were filed monthly.
As PincusCo reported in the July monthly analysis, a trend toward smaller buildings has emerged and continued into August.
While the total volume of plans filed in June and July, 108 and 90 respectively, was consistent with the 107 plans filed in April, and greater than the average of 74 plans filed monthly from January through March, the total square footage decreased substantially. Similarly, while August’s square footage numbers were on par with quarter one totals, it took a total of 115 plans to reach that number, the second highest monthly total this year.
The smallest building plans filed each month made up a greater percentage of the total plans filed from June through August than in months prior. Of August’s 115 plans, 77 of them, or 67 percent, called for buildings less than 10,000-square-feet. For comparison, of April’s 107 plans, 54 of them, or just over 50 percent, called for buildings less than 10,000-square-feet.
While it’s not clear what has caused the uptick in smaller new building filings, the largest filings from August were still significant and noteworthy.
The largest building of the month was a joint development from BRP Companies and Wharton Properties, which on August 17 filed a permit application for construction of a 614-unit, 492,987-square-foot, two-tower, mixed-use building at 166-20 90th Avenue in Jamaica. The 12-story building will have retail space and stand 124-feet tall when completed.
The second largest plans were pre-filed by New York City’s Housing Preservation and Development on August 17. The plans called for construction of a 184-unit, 189,907-square-foot mixed-use building at 273 Snediker Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The development site also has an alternate address of 496 Sutter Avenue.
Edward J. Minskoff Equities was the developer for the third largest plans of the month. On August 27, the builder filed a permit application for construction of a 184,467-square-foot office building at 29 Jay Street in Dumbo, a property which the firm acquired for $61.5 million in March of this year.
The fourth largest plans came from Rick Gropper’s Camber Property Group on August 26, when the developer filed a permit application for construction of a 181-unit, 111,423-square-foot residential building at 2000 Valentine Avenue in Fordham. The property has an alternate address of 1978 Valentine Avenue.
Finally, on August 24, Gemini Rosemont Development filed plans for construction of an 87-unit, 100,708-square-foot mixed-use building at their recently acquired 42 Second Avenue development site in the East Village.