Alliance of Pittsburgh building owners slashes carbon emissions by 45%

The Pittsburgh 2030 District, an alliance of building owners in the Pittsburgh area, says that it has reduced carbon emissions by 44.8% below baseline.

Begun in 2012 under the guidance of the Green Building Alliance (GBA), the Pittsburgh 2030 District encompasses more than 86 million sf of space within 556 buildings.

The project has created a savings of $205.8 million in energy and water costs, and 1.85 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided since 2012, according to its 2022 Progress Report.

GBA provides participants with education, training, and guidance to further their progress, covering topics such as:

Conducting deep carbon retrofits on existing buildings to dramatically improve efficiency
Case studies of net zero carbon retrofits
Examples of whole building life cycle analysis
Embodied carbon
Facilitating building electrification to eliminate fossil fuel use, including replacing furnaces and boilers that run on natural gas with ground- or air-source heat pumps.
Thermal energy storage

Pittsburgh is the North American leader in amount of square footage committed to 2030 District goals. There are 22 international 2030 Districts in total.

The Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball team announced that it has reached an agreement with St. Petersburg and Pinellas County on a $6.5 billion, 86-acre mixed-use development that will include a new 30,000-seat ballpark and an array of office, housing, hotel, retail, and restaurant space totaling 8 million sf.

Engineers | Sep 15, 2023

NIST investigation of Champlain Towers South collapse indicates no sinkhole

Investigators from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) say they have found no evidence of underground voids on the site of the Champlain Towers South collapse, according to a new NIST report. The team of investigators have studied the site’s subsurface conditions to determine if sinkholes or excessive settling of the pile foundations might have caused the collapse.

MFPRO+ Research | Sep 11, 2023

Conversions of multifamily dwellings to ‘mansions’ leading to dwindling affordable stock

Small multifamily homes have historically provided inexpensive housing for renters and buyers, but developers have converted many of them in recent decades into larger, single-family units. This has worsened the affordable housing crisis, say researchers.

Deciphering the Differences in Smart Lock Networks

Adaptive Reuse | Aug 31, 2023

New York City creates team to accelerate office-to-residential conversions

New York City has a new Office Conversion Accelerator Team that provides a single point of contact within city government to help speed adaptive reuse projects. Projects that create 50 or more housing units from office buildings are eligible for this new program.