What happened last cycle
Before you trust a list of open buildings, look at what the same public data showed last time: who filed, when they filed and how often the building changed its inspection firm. Every number below is recomputed every week from NYC Department of Buildings filings. Aggregates only - no building, owner or firm is named.
89% of the buildings in cycle 9 have a report on file
The Department of Buildings' facade filing status list holds 15,840 buildings in Sub-Cycles 9A, 9B and 9C; 89% show a filed report. In the open filings dataset that we analyse below, 84% have an initial cycle 9 report (13,326 buildings) - the rest were filed in ways the dataset does not carry as an initial report. The remaining buildings never filed, which is why buildings without a cycle 9 report are rated priority C in the list.
Half of the reports came in the last six months - 28% after the deadline
First cycle 9 report of each building by filing date, relative to the end of its sub-cycle window (Feb 21 of 2022, 2023 or 2024). 37% of all first reports arrived in the deadline month alone; only 14% were filed more than a year ahead. 65% of first reports carried a late-filing fee (median $9,000).
13,326 first reports. The window in which owners choose a firm is usually 2-6 months before the filing.
Between 54% and 61% of buildings changed their inspection firm
For the 9,521 buildings with a first report in both cycle 8 and cycle 9, we compare the firm of record. By normalised firm name, 54% changed firm; by the inspector's license number (9,454 buildings with both licenses), 61% changed. We show both because each has a blind spot: a renamed firm looks like a switch by name, a different inspector at the same firm looks like a switch by license. Counting only buildings where name and license changed: 51%. By the building's cycle 8 rating (by firm name): SAFE 58%, SWARMP 49%.
The switches were spread across 268 firms
4,883 buildings changed firm (name and license). No single firm took more than 4% of them; the five largest together took 15%, the ten largest 26%. It took 28 firms to collect half of the switched buildings.
Where the switched buildings landed
Share of switched buildings by size of the new firm (cycle 9 first reports)
Small firms lost their buildings most often
Switch rate by size of the cycle 8 firm (its cycle 8 first reports)
How the buildings were split
Share of buildings by size of their cycle 8 firm
Buildings with a 1-4 building firm switched in 77% of cases; 58% of all switched buildings landed at firms with 100 or more buildings.
The same pattern in every borough
| Borough | Buildings, cycle 9 list | With report | Last 6 months | After deadline | Changed firm (name) | Firms that won switches | Largest firm's share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manhattan | 8,890 | 93% | 53% | 25% | 53% | 230 | 4% |
| Bronx | 2,373 | 77% | 48% | 32% | 48% | 106 | 8% |
| Brooklyn | 2,378 | 87% | 43% | 36% | 58% | 126 | 11% |
| Queens | 2,063 | 88% | 53% | 28% | 58% | 116 | 7% |
| Staten Island | 136 | 73% | 48% | 20% | 52% | 12 | 19% |
Borough of the cycle 9 list or report. Staten Island has few buildings in the program; read its percentages with care.
Cycle 10 against cycle 9 at the same distance from the deadline
Initial reports filed so far in each cycle 10 sub-cycle, next to the number the matching cycle 9 sub-cycle had at the same number of months before its deadline. Past cycles do not guarantee the timing of this one. These are filings in the NYC Open Data dataset; our building lists count one row per building and follow the DOB filing status list, so their "already filed" numbers can differ slightly.
| Sub-cycle | Months to deadline | Cycle 10 reports so far | Cycle 9, same point |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10A | 4 | 1,754 | 903 |
| 10B | 16 | 661 | 368 |
| 10C | 28 | 449 | 413 |
How these numbers are made
- Sources: NYC Open Data "DOB NOW: Safety - Facades Compliance Filings" (xubg-57si) and the Department of Buildings' facade filing status list (Local Law 11, Sub-Cycles 9A-9C). Data as of Oct 16, 2026; page rebuilt 2026-10-19 with the weekly data run.
- First report: the earliest initial (TR6) report of a building in a cycle. Amendments and subsequent reports are not counted. Timing uses the filing date the DOB records for the report. Sub-cycle and deadline follow the DOB's last-digit-of-block rule (1 RCNY 103-04).
- Firm: the QEWI business name on the report, normalised (legal forms, generic words and known spelling variants removed). The license is the inspector's New York license number on the report.
- Switch: a building with a first report in cycle 8 and cycle 9 whose firm differs. Renamed or merged firms can look like a switch by name; firms with several inspectors can look like a switch by license - hence both values. Firm-size classes count each firm's first reports in the cycle.
- Late: filed after the end of the sub-cycle window. A late-filing fee can also apply inside the window (for example when the report is filed more than 60 days after the inspection).
- Limits: public filings only - no information on proposals, prices or why an owner chose a firm. Past cycles do not predict cycle 10. Informational, not affiliated with the NYC Department of Buildings; verify in DOB NOW.