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Time Business News
11-07-2025
- Business
- Time Business News
Top 5 Difficulties Faced by General Contractors in New York
New York is one of the most exciting and dynamic places to work in construction — but it's also one of the most complex. General contractors in New York face a unique set of challenges that can make even the most straightforward projects feel overwhelming. From tight regulations to unpredictable weather and rising costs, the obstacles are real — and they demand smart, experienced management. Whether working on a brownstone renovation in Brooklyn or a high-rise in Manhattan, contractors must navigate an environment where every detail matters. In this article, we explore the top 5 difficulties general contractors regularly face in New York — and how understanding them can help deliver better, more efficient projects. In New York, even a small construction project can require permits from multiple agencies, including: NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Fire Department of New York (FDNY) Landmark Preservation Commission (for historical sites) The permitting process is lengthy and extremely detail-oriented. Missing one minor document can delay the project for weeks. New York City regularly updates its building codes. General contractors must stay up to date with: Local Law 97 (carbon emission limits) Safety and fire regulations Accessibility and energy efficiency requirements Not complying can lead to hefty fines, project shutdowns, or even legal consequences. New York has some of the highest labor rates in the country. Unionized labor is common, particularly for commercial or public projects. While unions ensure high-quality work, contractors must budget carefully to account for these elevated wages. There's growing demand for specialized trades, such as: Electricians with smart building experience HVAC technicians trained in green systems Licensed crane operators Because demand outpaces supply, contractors often face delays or must pay premiums for skilled labor. In most New York neighborhoods — especially Manhattan and Brooklyn — space is at a premium. General contractors must work with: Narrow streets Zero-lot-line properties Limited staging or storage areas Deliveries, equipment storage, and waste removal all require careful coordination. The city controls street use permits for dumpsters, cranes, and scaffolding. Contractors must apply for: Sidewalk closures Street occupancy permits After-hours variance permits Failure to obtain these can halt work and invite fines. From heavy snow in winter to rainstorms in spring, New York weather can derail even the most organized schedule. Contractors must plan for: Snow removal and heating in winter Rain protection for materials Weather-proof scheduling with buffer days Outdoor construction can be limited in colder months, making timelines tight. For projects near water or parks, contractors must adhere to environmental impact assessments. Dust control, noise restrictions, and pollution control are heavily enforced. New York's construction market is influenced by global supply chains. Contractors often struggle with fluctuating costs for: Lumber and steel Glass and façade materials Concrete and aggregates Projects that take over a year to complete are especially vulnerable to price shifts. Clients — especially in residential or small commercial projects — often underestimate true project costs in NYC. General contractors must be skilled in: Transparent budgeting Change order management Educating clients on cost variables Failure to set clear expectations can lead to disputes, stalled payments, or incomplete projects. New York projects typically involve: Architects Structural engineers MEP consultants Expeditors Interior designers Government officials Contractors often serve as the glue holding it all together. Miscommunication or conflicting opinions can stall a project fast. While the difficulties are real, experienced contractors adopt smart strategies to navigate them: Hiring an expeditor or working with consultants familiar with NYC building codes can drastically speed up permitting and approval processes. Having a trusted pool of skilled laborers and subcontractors ensures faster scheduling and fewer quality issues. Project management tools like Procore, Buildertrend, or CoConstruct help manage budgets, timelines, and communication — especially for multi-phase projects. The more work done upfront — design coordination, material sourcing, schedule mapping — the fewerissues arise during execution. Companies familiar with New York's laws, labor unions, and logistics can offer valuable insights and smoother execution. Partnering with experienced professionals can save money and reduce stress. New York is a place of opportunity — but for general contractors, it also comes with a steep learning curve. From navigating regulations to managing tight urban spaces and rising material costs, contractors face real hurdles every day. Still, those who are prepared, detail-oriented, and backed by a reliable team can thrive in this challenging environment. Whether you're a property developer, investor, or someone planning a construction project in New York, it's essential to understand the obstacles contractors face — and respect the complexity behind every successful build. With the right strategies and partners, even the toughest projects in NYC can be completed efficiently, safely, and beautifully. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Malaysian Reserve
01-07-2025
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
Only 60 Days Left: NYC Buildings Enter Final Stretch Before Local Law 97 Deadline
The Cotocon Group Issues Urgent Warning as August 29 Compliance Cutoff Approaches NEW YORK, July 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — With just 60 days remaining until the August 29, 2025 deadline, The Cotocon Group is urging New York City building owners to take immediate action to comply with Local Law 97—or face severe annual penalties starting this year. Part of the Climate Mobilization Act, LL97 requires most buildings over 25,000 square feet to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Many property owners are still unprepared, and the final compliance window is rapidly closing. 'The greatest return for building owners is investing in energy efficiency,' said Jimmy Carchietta, Founder and CEO of The Cotocon Group. 'This isn't just about checking a box—it's about reducing operating costs, protecting asset value, and avoiding long-term financial risk. The clock is ticking.' As New York's leading sustainability and energy compliance firm, The Cotocon Group has helped thousands of buildings prepare for LL97 through emissions analysis, prescriptive energy conservation measures (PECMs), and strategic retrofit planning. The firm reports a major surge in late-stage inquiries—but warns that LL97 filings, audits, and implementation require planning and coordination that can't be left to the last minute. Recent Developments: The NYC Department of Buildings has ramped up enforcement efforts, with audit flags and violation notices already being issued. Non-compliance may result in fines up to $268 per metric ton of CO₂e above the limit—costing some properties hundreds of thousands annually. What Building Owners Must Do Now: Confirm emissions thresholds and compliance obligations File Article 321 report (if due) or applicable extension Partner with a qualified consultant to avoid misreporting About The Cotocon GroupThe Cotocon Group is a leading energy compliance and sustainability advisory firm in NYC, specializing in Local Laws 97, 84, 87, and 88. Cotocon provides tailored energy strategies that help building owners reduce emissions, avoid penalties, and meet the demands of a low-carbon future. Media Inquiries : media@ (212) 555-0197
New York Post
04-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Stiffing landlords is killing NYC's housing market
The Rent Guidelines Board last week took yet another step toward crushing the city's housing market by capping rent hikes below landlord costs. Its members, most tapped by Mayor Eric Adams, gave preliminary approval to rent increases of 1.75% to 4.75% for one-year leases and 4.75% to 7.75% to two-year renewals. Advertisement Next month the board will settle on final numbers, but even if it opts for the highest of those ranges, landlords won't be able to keep up with rising costs — for insurance, energy, taxes, etc. — for rent-stabilized units. And given the political pressure (especially with a mayoral election looming), it's a fair bet they'll cap the hikes below the high end. Landlords who can't keep up with costs wind up having to sell to more-unsavory characters, or skimping on maintenance — and tenants suffer either way. Advertisement Or owners will simply go bust, losing their buildings to banks — or to the city, for failing to pay taxes, as during the 1970s and '80. That's bad news for people seeking a place to live. Note: From 2013 to 2023, costs for pre-1974 buildings outside the Manhattan core (i.e., where most rent-stabilized units are located) skyrocketed 37% — yet the board only let rents go up less than 25%. Advertisement Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2019 rent law slammed owners with even more financial hardships, preventing them, for instance, from passing along to tenants the costs of bringing vacated apartments up to code. As a result, more than 10,000 units are sitting vacant instead of being renovated for new occupants. Brilliant. Plus, the city's Local Law 97 and Cuomo's climate law are forcing owners to shell out even more of their stretched dollars to refit buildings in the name of fighting climate change. Profit margins and building values are taking a dive; thousands of buildings are already in financial 'distress,' a trend that's been soaring since the de Blasio years of insane zero-percent rent hikes. Advertisement If board members — or, more important, the elected officials who chose them — truly care about New York tenants, they'd let landlords at least recoup their costs. If the city keep slapping owners, its housing stock will keep sinking fast, adding to everyone's misery.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meet Manhattan's first housing co-op to electrify heating and cooling
Canary Media's 'Electrified Life' column shares real-world tales, tips, and insights to demystify what individuals can do to shift their homes and lives to clean electric power. At 420 East 51st St., nestled in the Midtown East neighborhood of Manhattan, a 13-story beige brick building sits among a handful of other hulking structures. Its tidy facade doesn't particularly stand out. Nor does its height. In fact, from the street it's impossible to see what makes the cooperatively owned 1962 building unique among most other apartment properties in New York City: Its residents opted to fully electrify the heating and cooling system. The co-op board decided in 2023 to swap out the structure's original fossil-fuel steam system for large-scale electric heat pumps that provide space heating, cooling, and water heating. Utility and state incentives covered a whopping one-third of the $2.9 million project's cost. The move, which the seven-member board approved unanimously, puts the co-op well ahead of the curve in complying with Local Law 97, the city's landmark legislation limiting CO2 emissions from buildings larger than 25,000 square feet. Owners of buildings that overshoot carbon thresholds face financial penalties. The law's first reporting deadline is May 1, and the 110-unit co-op has hit its emissions reduction targets far ahead of schedule. With the upgrades completed last September, it'll avoid triggering penalties through 2049. Also known as 420 Beekman Hill, the edifice is among the first multifamily structures in Manhattan to switch to all-electric heating, cooling, and water heating. It also appears to be the first co-op to do so, according to staff at NYC Accelerator, a building decarbonization initiative run by the Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice. The retrofit provides a model for the work that will need to happen in buildings around the country in order to achieve climate goals and comply with laws similar to Local Law 97, said Cliff Majersik, senior advisor at the nonprofit Institute for Market Transformation. There are more than 30 million multifamily housing units in the U.S., 40% of which were heated with fossil fuels as of 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration. The co-op had originally relied on the local utility Con Edison's district steam system, which is primarily fed by fossil gas and some fuel oil. The retrofit design team weaned the building off that piped steam, solving a problem that still bedevils building owners connected to the hundreds of steam loops operating across the country, including in Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia. 'Getting off steam is the most challenging transition,' explained Ted Tiffany, senior technical lead at the Building Decarbonization Coalition, who added that he was really excited the Beekman Hill project popped up on his radar. 'This gives us an example' for how buildings on steam can go electric cost effectively and in a way that doesn't disrupt tenants' lives, he said. The vanguard achievement in the Empire City comes as four states and 10 other locales have passed their own laws to rein in emissions from existing buildings, and more than 30 other jurisdictions have committed to adopting similar rules, known as building performance standards. New York City's policy was among the first such laws to be passed in the U.S. Under Local Law 97, 92% of buildings are expected to meet emissions standards within this first compliance period, which runs from 2024 to 2029, according to the nonprofit Urban Green Council. But getting buildings to make the deeper cuts needed to cumulatively slash emissions 40% by 2030 will take a lot more action. NYC Accelerator, which helped on the Beekman Hill retrofit, exists to support city building owners with free resources, training, and one-on-one guidance to complete decarbonization projects. 'What we're seeing most of all is that these [retrofits] are complex and sometimes difficult,' said Elijah Hutchinson, executive director of the Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice. 'You do need to hand-hold and get to people very early.' The accelerator is holding up Beekman Hill as a shining example of what's doable. Last month, the office threw an open house at the co-op so other building owners could see the climate-friendly upgrades. Ten gleaming Aermec heat pumps on the roof capture heat from the winter air and shuttle it to heat exchangers in the basement, which then deliver that heat to the building's water-based hydronic system. The water carries the heat to each residential unit, where warmth wafts out from an unobtrusive piece of equipment called a fan coil. Because all of the installation work, including an upgrade that tripled the building's electrical capacity, was done outside of the living spaces, 'there was no disruption to the tenants,' said Rahil Shah, engineer and director of sustainability at Ventrop Engineering Consulting Group, the firm that designed and managed the project. In the summer, the heat pumps work in reverse, drawing heat from inside the apartments and dumping it outside. The double-duty equipment allowed the co-op to ditch its old absorption chillers that ran on Con Edison steam. The new system also has three additional Colmac heat pumps in the basement that can give the water heated from the rooftop heat pumps a thermal boost. While those on the roof can only reach temperatures up to 110–120 degrees Fahrenheit, the basement heat pumps can reach 160°F — potent enough to store the co-op's hot water. Shah said this is the first time that Ventrop Engineering has used both types of heat pumps together to help decarbonize a building's space and water heating. The firm plans to deploy the winning combo again in the future. In all, Beekman Hill expects a 60% reduction in energy use and a 76% drop in its greenhouse gas emissions compared with running on steam. The building still has some gas stoves that it will need to replace in the coming years to go fully electric. Without the updates, the co-op would have faced penalties of about $30,000 per year from 2030 to 2034. Fees would've climbed sharply afterward to nearly $90,000 per year by 2040. Plus, the building simply needed an upgrade: Its six-decade-old system was on the brink of breakdown. What convinced the co-op to electrify? 'Me,' said Randolph Gerner, Beekman Hill resident and board member in charge of capital improvements, as well as principal at GKV Architects. 'On a board, you have different expertise. My expertise is very much in this field,' Gerner said. 'I've designed a number of buildings … and my new buildings are all electrified.' With assistance from NYC Accelerator, Beekman Hill secured $154,000 from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's Multifamily Buildings Low-Carbon Pathways Program and $1 million from Con Edison's Clean Heat Program to help cover the project bill of $2.9 million before incentives. The co-op took out a loan to finance the rest over three years at a cost of about $15,000 to $20,000 per unit, depending on its size. The funding actually made the project about $600,000 cheaper than the alternative — a traditional gas boiler and electric air-conditioning, Gerner said. It's rare that building boards have architectural and engineering design pros on them, Gerner added. So neighboring co-ops have sought him out for guidance on how to decarbonize their buildings. He's already sat down with six other co-op boards in the past two years, he said. Gerner's advice for co-ops grappling with whether to embrace heat pumps is simple: 'Give me a call.'
Newsweek
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
If Nations Won't Fight Global Warming, Cities Can and Will
Creating a safe and livable future for humanity would appear to be an obvious goal for all. Yet, in 2025, the climate movement has never faced a more hostile and coordinated opposition. Within the new U.S administration—and a growing number of political parties across the world—we now have climate deniers openly working to dismantle years of painstaking climate diplomacy and action. This creates huge risks for us all. We are already seeing the stark consequences of the failure of nation states to do enough. Wildfires, hurricanes, rising sea levels and extreme heat are all becoming more frequent and severe. Carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere are now over 420 parts per million—20 percent higher than when the UN climate negotiations began nearly three decades ago. This aerial view shows icebergs floating in the waters beaten down by the sun with buildings in the background off Nuuk, Greenland, on March 11. This aerial view shows icebergs floating in the waters beaten down by the sun with buildings in the background off Nuuk, Greenland, on March 11. ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images But as we mark the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, under the banner of "Our Power, Our Planet," we can draw hope from the difference that cities, communities and individuals can still make to tackle the climate crisis. Cities are proving that a greener and healthier way of life is not only possible, but already delivering tangible benefits—from well-paid green jobs to less polluted neighborhoods. The first Earth Day in 1970 sparked a movement in the United States that led to the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Today, the U.S. may be run by those who seem willing to squander the economic opportunities of the green economy, but cities around the world are already seizing them. From London to Los Angeles, and São Paulo to Seoul, cities are powering a formidable climate movement that is having a real impact. London has put in place the world's largest clean air zone, helping to bring down emissions and dramatically clean up its air. The city has also brought forward its net zero target to 2030, which is helping to accelerate green investment, boost business and grow the low-carbon economy. London knows it would be foolish to miss out on the economic opportunity of the 21st century, and many other cities are not only watching and learning, but emulating this example, with new and exciting climate initiatives of their own. In New York City, Local Law 97 mandates that large buildings cut their carbon footprint. The energy costs of Rio de Janeiro's municipal buildings will soon be halved by switching to renewables. Amsterdam is on target to phase out natural gas by 2040 while insulating the homes of the city's most vulnerable residents. Copenhagen is on track to become the first carbon-neutral city by the end of this year, thanks to investments in wind energy and district heating. Across Africa, cities like Nairobi and Freetown are planting millions of trees to cool streets and combat extreme weather. More than half of the world's population (56 percent of people) now live in cities, and urban areas generate about 80 percent of global GDP. Throughout history, cities have been hubs of progress on the forefront of innovation. As national governments step back from their climate obligations, cities are now becoming ever-bigger players in the transition to a greener, more environmentally responsible era. They are stepping up and generating not just clean power, but the momentum that's urgently needed to realize a greener and safer future. This will hopefully encourage citizens around the world to not lose faith and to continue to put pressure on their national governments to do more before it's too late. The first Earth Day mobilized 20 million people to demand action. Today, more than a billion participate annually. So, let's use this moment to harness our collective power, push back against the vested interests and continue the fight for a better and brighter future for our planet. Sadiq Khan is the current mayor of London and co-chair of C-40 Cities. Denis Hayes is organizer of the first Earth Day and serves as board chair emeritus of The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
