Name: Jeff Rios, PE
Company: AKF Group
What are your predictions for commercial real estate in 2020?
2019 was a monumental year in NYC where building energy and emissions took center stage. Passed in April, Local Law 97 requires NYC buildings to meet greenhouse gas emission limits starting in 2024, transforming how the real estate industry thinks about building energy consumption. The industry is still trying to figure out what LL97 means in a tangible way. 2020 will focus on these challenges: Sorting out unknowns in the law; planning future capital projects to comply with the law; designing with new technologies that prioritize greenhouse gas reductions over old metrics of energy cost; and designing new buildings to comply with the pending 2020 NYC Energy Code and with LL97. I’m excited to find engineering solutions to real challenges that await in 2020.