Ones To Watch: Innovators In Commercial Real Estate: RunEnvelope

Architect-Grade Zoning Reports, On Demand.

Never pay an architect for a zoning report again.

RunEnvelope is a New York City software company that produces architect-grade zoning studies for any lot in the five boroughs in minutes. Every legal development scenario is modeled, drawn floor by floor and cited to the Zoning Resolution, giving brokers, owners and developers the answer to the first question in any deal before they hire an architect. 

Every development deal in New York City starts with the same question: what exactly can you build here? For decades the answer has come one of two ways. There is the quick FAR lookup, which ignores the yards, setbacks, height limits and overlays that decide what actually fits. Or there is a zoning study from an architect, which costs thousands of dollars and takes days or weeks. Most deals die somewhere between those two options, and many are never looked at at all.

RunEnvelope was founded in 2026 by Sam Eshaghoff, a New York real estate developer, to close that gap. Enter any address or block and lot in the five boroughs, and the engine produces the study an architect would deliver in the second week of schematic design: every legal path modeled as a building, every floor drawn, and every number cited to the section of the Zoning Resolution behind it. A typical report runs 50-100 pages. It is ready in minutes.

The engine handles the cases that make New York zoning hard. It tests as-of-right development against City of Yes Universal Affordability Preference, Inclusionary Housing, tower-on-base, shared housing and SRO schemes, and compares them side by side on floor area, height and unit count. It classifies yards edge by edge on irregular lots, handles split-zoned parcels, applies special-district and overlay rules automatically, and flags eligibility for 485-x, 421-a, J-51 and ICAP. Floor plates show unit layouts, cores, corridors and stairs.

What sets RunEnvelope apart is that it measures itself in public. Anyone can quote a FAR; the question is whether the number holds up in front of a Department of Buildings examiner. Every week the engine is run against more than a thousand DOB-approved new-building filings across the city to see how often what the city approved fits inside what the engine says is legal. For buildings that used their full allowance, its maximum zoning floor area lands a median 0.6 percent from the architect’s approved figure in contextual districts, and 1.1 percent across all residential approvals. The results are published on the company’s website, filing by filing, and a new release that scores worse than the last one cannot ship.

The engine has already analyzed all 858,284 tax lots in the city, and that changes how deals get screened. A broker can answer an owner’s first question the same day and price a listing on its upside. An owner can see what their lot could become, and how much unused air rights it carries, without hiring anyone. A developer can screen ten sites in the time it used to take to screen one, test an assemblage, and make a go or no-go call before engaging a design team.

Checking a lot is free, with no account required, and full reports start at $149. With City of Yes reshaping what can be built on lots across all five boroughs, RunEnvelope’s goal is simple: make the answer to the first question in every New York deal fast, affordable and right.

“The first question in every development deal is what you can build. That answer shouldn’t cost thousands or take weeks.” - Sam Eshaghoff, Founder, RunEnvelope.

COMPANY SNAPSHOT

HEADQUARTERS: New York, NY

FOUNDED: 2026

WEBSITE: runenvelope.com

LEADERSHIP TEAM:

Sam Eshaghoff, Founder

Taylor Costa van Putten, Director of Sales