New York City Preconstruction Activity Index
Initial DOB NOW job filings — the filings that open a new job — by borough and neighborhood.
Pipeline composition
Only 44.6% of July's filings opened a new job. Initial job filings declined while filings attached to existing jobs increased.
| Filing class (distinct filings) | Jul 2025 | Jul 2026 |
|---|---|---|
-I1 initial — opens a new DOB job | 6,775 | 6,182 |
-S* subsequent — added scope on an existing job | 2,989 | 3,315 |
-P* post-approval amendments | 4,161 | 4,055 |
-A*/-B*/-C* administrative series | 199 | 227 |
| Unclassified remainder | 41 | 92 |
| Total | 14,165 | 13,871 |
Boroughs
| Borough | 2025 | 2026 | Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manhattan | 7,874 | 7,278 | 92.4 |
| Brooklyn | 4,965 | 4,336 | 87.3 |
| Queens | 4,079 | 3,544 | 86.9 |
| Bronx | 2,028 | 1,783 | 87.9 |
| Staten Island | 1,161 | 1,068 | 92.0 |
Ground-up: initial New Building filings
| Borough | 2025 | 2026 | Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queens | 159 | 152 | 95.6 |
| Brooklyn | 113 | 117 | 103.5 |
| Bronx | 83 | 78 | 94.0 |
| Staten Island | 58 | 92 | 158.6 |
| Manhattan | 15 | 6 | 40.0 |
Approval processing by work type
Roughly half of NYC filings are professionally self-certified and received approval in a median of one day. Because self-certified and standard-plan filings follow different review processes, the work-type comparison below is limited to standard plan examination. Edition 1 publishes every work type with at least 100 filings in both April cohorts, measured at identical 120-day maturity; changes of at least 10 percentage points are highlighted as exploratory findings. These thresholds will be applied unchanged in future editions.
| Work type (standard plan examination) | Apr 2025 | Apr 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alteration CO | 41.3% (104/252) | 25.1% (52/207) | -16.2 pts |
| New Building | 25.8% (39/151) | 13.9% (15/108) | -11.9 pts |
| No Work | 87.7% (179/204) | 82.5% (165/200) | -5.2 pts |
| Alteration | 87.6% (2005/2288) | 86.0% (1545/1797) | -1.6 pts |
| Full Demolition | 83.3% (120/144) | 83.9% (130/155) | +0.6 pts |
The dataset contains only each filing's current status, so it cannot establish why the remaining filings had not been approved by day 120.
Data: approval by work type (CSV)
Neighborhoods
Areas below carry at least 60 prior-year initial filings. "Passes mover rule" means the area also cleared an absolute change of 15+ and the independent six-month direction check. The edition displays up to the six largest qualified moves in each direction; every qualifying row is here.
| Neighborhood (NTA) | 2025 | 2026 | Index | Passes mover rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midtown-Times Square | 1,142 | 1,146 | 100.4 | — |
| Upper East Side-Carnegie Hill | 686 | 563 | 82.1 | yes |
| Midtown South-Flatiron-Union Square | 592 | 464 | 78.4 | — |
| Chelsea-Hudson Yards | 418 | 472 | 112.9 | — |
| East Midtown-Turtle Bay | 401 | 357 | 89.0 | — |
| Upper West Side (Central) | 362 | 322 | 89.0 | yes |
| West Village | 336 | 244 | 72.6 | — |
| Upper West Side-Lincoln Square | 307 | 222 | 72.3 | — |
| SoHo-Little Italy-Hudson Square | 301 | 322 | 107.0 | — |
| Financial District-Battery Park City | 278 | 345 | 124.1 | yes |
| Greenwich Village | 265 | 243 | 91.7 | yes |
| Park Slope | 260 | 187 | 71.9 | — |
| Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill-Gowanus-Red Hook | 252 | 285 | 113.1 | yes |
| Upper East Side-Lenox Hill-Roosevelt Island | 222 | 203 | 91.4 | yes |
| Tribeca-Civic Center | 221 | 232 | 105.0 | — |
| Murray Hill-Kips Bay | 220 | 242 | 110.0 | — |
| Williamsburg | 199 | 222 | 111.6 | — |
| East Village | 195 | 185 | 94.9 | — |
| Hell's Kitchen | 187 | 143 | 76.5 | — |
| Upper East Side-Yorkville | 185 | 180 | 97.3 | — |
| Downtown Brooklyn-DUMBO-Boerum Hill | 175 | 146 | 83.4 | yes |
| Gramercy | 175 | 171 | 97.7 | — |
| Greenpoint | 173 | 129 | 74.6 | yes |
| Sunset Park (West) | 170 | 160 | 94.1 | — |
| Throgs Neck-Schuylerville | 166 | 68 | 41.0 | — |
| Bedford-Stuyvesant (West) | 164 | 175 | 106.7 | — |
| Bay Ridge | 160 | 98 | 61.2 | yes |
| Flushing-Willets Point | 160 | 175 | 109.4 | — |
| Bedford-Stuyvesant (East) | 148 | 123 | 83.1 | yes |
| South Ozone Park | 148 | 129 | 87.2 | yes |
| Brooklyn Heights | 144 | 122 | 84.7 | yes |
| Annadale-Huguenot-Prince's Bay-Woodrow | 142 | 111 | 78.2 | — |
| Upper West Side-Manhattan Valley | 141 | 77 | 54.6 | yes |
| Forest Hills | 139 | 124 | 89.2 | yes |
| East Williamsburg | 135 | 163 | 120.7 | yes |
| Harlem (South) | 127 | 98 | 77.2 | yes |
| Borough Park | 125 | 118 | 94.4 | — |
| Crown Heights (North) | 124 | 106 | 85.5 | yes |
| Bensonhurst | 122 | 134 | 109.8 | — |
| Brownsville | 119 | 94 | 79.0 | — |
Full tables: neighborhoods (CSV) · boroughs (CSV)