Trusted General Contractor in
Brooklyn, NY

All commercial building permits in Brooklyn are issued by the NYC Department of Buildings. The DOB Brooklyn Borough Office is located at 345 Adams Street, third floor, in Downtown Brooklyn. All new building permit and alteration applications are filed electronically through the DOB NOW platform. The permit type determines the timeline and requirements: an ALT-3 permit covers minor work and typically takes two to four weeks; an ALT-2 covers alterations that do not affect use, egress, or occupancy and takes four to eight weeks; an ALT-1 covers major alterations that affect use, egress, or occupancy and takes eight to sixteen months; and a new building permit typically takes six to eighteen months. ALT-1 and new building applications require plans sealed by a Registered Architect or Professional Engineer. A Stop Work Order and Work Without Permit violation carries fines of $2,500 to $25,000 per violation, with the cost to legalize work done without a permit typically running two to three times the original permit cost.

If your property is a designated New York City landmark or is located within one of Brooklyn’s 41 historic districts, any exterior work visible from a public way, and most work that requires a DOB building permit, requires LPC approval before the DOB permit can be issued. Brooklyn has more historic districts than any other borough, including Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Greenpoint, Fort Greene, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Park Slope, and the newly designated Beverley Square West and Ditmas Park West districts designated in November 2025. LPC issues three types of approvals: a Certificate of No Effect for non-visible or interior work, a Permit for Minor Work for small compliant exterior changes, and a Certificate of Appropriateness for significant exterior changes requiring a public hearing. LPC staff can be backlogged sixty days or more, so identifying LPC requirements before commissioning an architect is critical to keeping the project schedule intact. We pre-screen LPC requirements as a standard component of our Brooklyn commercial pre-construction scope.

Local Law 97 is New York City’s building greenhouse gas emissions law, enacted in 2019 as part of the Climate Mobilization Act. It applies to any building over 25,000 gross square feet, and to two or more buildings on the same tax lot totaling over 50,000 gross square feet. The first compliance period began January 1, 2024, and runs through 2029. Covered buildings must submit annual GHG emissions reports to the NYC Department of Buildings by May 1 each year, with the first report due May 1, 2025. Buildings that exceed their emissions caps face penalties. Stricter limits take effect in 2030. For Brooklyn commercial owners, LL97 affects construction in two ways: new commercial construction and major renovation projects on covered buildings need to incorporate MEP systems that will achieve the 2024 to 2029 emissions cap and ideally the 2030 cap, and older buildings being repositioned through adaptive reuse often need LL97 retrofits incorporated into the renovation scope. We identify LL97 obligations for covered buildings in pre-construction and coordinate the MEP upgrade scope with the overall building permit application.

Design-build is a project delivery method in which one firm holds the contract for both the architectural design and the construction of a project, rather than the owner managing a separate architect and a separate general contractor. In Brooklyn, where DOB NOW permit timelines are longer than in Nassau or Suffolk, LPC review adds an additional approval track, and Local Law 97 retrofit requirements introduce MEP coordination into the permit set, design-build reduces schedule risk by keeping all decisions within one accountable team. When a DOB plan examiner flags a zoning or code objection, the architect and contractor resolve it together immediately rather than communicating through the owner. For apartment renovation and remodel projects in Williamsburg, Crown Heights, DUMBO, and Park Slope, where pre-war building conditions often produce scope discoveries during design, design-build means the contractor’s field knowledge is informing architectural decisions from day one, avoiding costly redesign late in the process.

We serve all of Brooklyn, with active project coverage in Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Park Slope, Fort Greene, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Flatbush, and Bay Ridge. Project types include commercial office and adaptive reuse, mixed-use development, healthcare and institutional construction, LPC historic district renovation and restoration, Local Law 97 compliance retrofit, and design-build apartment renovation and remodel. Project teams dispatch from our Bayport headquarters on Long Island with full NYC Licensed General Contractor credentials, New York State bonding through a U.S. Treasury-listed surety, and 45 years of pre-war and industrial building experience in the New York metropolitan area.