South Bronx Co-op Slashes Emission Penalties by $200K

Give them an A for effort — and for a job well done. Executive Towers, a 453-unit co-op building in South Bronx, has not only hiked its lackluster D energy efficiency grade to a far more impressive B, but also slashed its emission fines by more than $200,000. The management team’s pivotal move? Remeasuring the building’s gross floor area, which once corrected, significantly reduced Local Law 97 penalties.

Getting the accurate number is important, because a building’s penalty is based on the gross floor area. “Building owners cannot simply submit square footage data from the Department of Finance for their Local Law 97 reporting,” says David Maggiotto, deputy press secretary at the Department of Buildings. The square footage data recorded by the Department of Finance (DOF) and used to determine property taxes is different from the gross floor area. If the gross floor area figure is inaccurately low, a building's penalty exposure may be higher because their emission threshold will be lower.

That was the case at Executive Towers. “Our building is not just made of residential apartments but also commercial spaces,” explains property manager Camille Quamina, of the management firm The Lovett Group. The new measurement for the co-op included commercial spaces, shafts, vents and parking, and concluded the building’s gross floor area was considerably higher than previously recorded. “That puts us in a different bracket for carbon emissions,” Quamina says.

The task of accurately calculating gross floor area builds on other steps taken to decrease the co-op’s emission penalties. Through the system-optimization firm Parity, the board installed smart sensors and controls to make the building’s heating and cooling run more efficiently. Executive Towers has chillers and pumps which, until recently, have been running all the time. “If you are able to shut the system off for a couple of hours a day it really adds up,” says Joe Cascio, Parity’s service delivery manager. Indeed, the new technology has reduced carbon emissions by 166 metric tons annually, which equates to a $45,000 reduction in penalties. “It’s like bringing our older equipment into the 21st Century,” Quamina says.

The co-op also retrofitted over 750 light fixtures throughout common areas, mechanical rooms, and in around 40% of the residential apartments. These upgrades put the co-op in compliance with requirements to switch out incandescent and fluorescent bulbs for more energy-efficient LEDs ahead of the January 1, 2025 deadline.

The combined $230,000 price tag for these three projects ended up costing the building $120,000 after incentives from New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and Con Edison. “We’d rather pay to make improvements at the building than pay penalties for not doing anything,” says former board president Charles Mills. Their work paid off — reducing the projected emission penalties beginning 2030 from $219,000 to just $7,500. “It was amazing and makes everything we did well worth it,” Mills says.

The board and management team are now working on a submetering project for the building’s commercial spaces and have plans for a 95,000 square foot green roof. The co-op refinanced in 2021 when rates were low, and in February will begin a 36-month assessment to raise $4 million for future capital projects, including roof repairs as well as maintenance of the facade.