Empire State Building Uses Cortex Mobile App to Reduce Energy Consumption and Create $800k Per Year in Savings

Mobile app for engineers enables data-driven decision-making at
world’s most famous building, enhancing net income, property value, and
sustainability

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Empire State Building has long been a global icon of leadership and
innovation – from the completion of its initial construction in 1931 to
the kickoff of the Empire State ReBuilding Program in 2009, to its
successful investment and return focused energy-efficiency retrofit.
Today the Empire State Building, assisted by JLL, is continuing to lead
innovation by harnessing a mobile app provided by Cortex Building
Intelligence to track and control energy consumption at the property. By
using the Cortex app, engineers at the Empire State Building have been
able to operate HVAC systems more precisely. The substantial reduction
in energy usage at the Empire State Building has translated into an
$800,000 decrease in the building’s annual operating costs – all without
compromising tenant satisfaction.

The Empire State Building has continued to create substantial energy
savings over the past several years – from refurbishing all 6,514
windows in the building to making significant investments in their
building management system. The Empire State Building has also continued
to invest in the people who operate it, building an engineering team
with over 100 years of collective experience working in the building
itself.

“We certainly spent significant time looking at a large number of
building intelligence software platforms, and what really stood out to
us about Cortex was its ability to provide powerful, specific and simple
recommendations for the engineers through a mobile app that they could
access from anywhere. Our work with ownership has shown that use of the
app has been a benefit to the engineering team and they generated
savings six times greater than Cortex originally projected,” explains
Dana Robbins Schneider, a Managing Director at JLL who has led JLL’s
work with ESRT at the Empire State Building.

Cortex connects directly to the building management system and meters
and, in real time, distills the immense amount of data being collected
into simple and intuitive charts, visualizations and recommendations
that the engineers can access from their mobile devices. Consequently,
the building engineers can make informed decisions with better
information at their fingertips, such as when to turn up the chiller or
fans, or when to shut systems down in the most energy-efficient manner.
Engineers also receive alerts when they are within a certain percentage
of hitting monthly peak electric or steam demand to avoid unnecessarily
high peak demand charges.

“Cortex has become the main tool utilized by the engineering staff here
at the Empire State Building to run efficiently our plant operations and
track utility savings from all efficiency initiatives. Every member of
our 21-person staff uses the Cortex app to make operational decisions as
well as track initiatives and their results. We tap into the app at
least twice per shift and have its dashboard fired up 24/7, 365,” says
Timothy Dailey, Chief Engineer, Empire State Realty Trust. “Our
well-trained and experienced staff has been totally engaged and has
found the Cortex app to be very helpful in reshaping long-held beliefs
about plant operation best practices. But the dollar savings is the real
justification to senior management and has been a huge success here at
ESB.”

Cortex’s recommendations are based on machine-learned historical,
current and forecasted data specific to each building, taking into
account weather, the day of the week and the preceding day’s profile to
understand how best to operate the building. By continuously monitoring
and analyzing data sources in each building, the Cortex platform helps
engineers provide the best commands to the building’s HVAC
infrastructure – a significant source of energy consumption and utility
costs.

In addition to the real-time recommendations and insights offered
through the app, the Cortex team has acted as a partner to the Empire
State Building engineers and the JLL Energy and Sustainability team,
participated in monthly discussions to identify collectively operational
opportunities, and continues to issue regular savings and performance
reports. In addition, the Cortex Customer Success team spends
significant time in person with the building engineers, proactively
identifying opportunities and answering questions. As described by
Dailey, “We have 24-hour access to the app and also have daily
interaction with Cortex team members where we get detailed reports.”

According to Bryan Bennett, Cortex’s Founder and CEO, “At Cortex, our
primary mission is to solve specific problems facing building engineers,
and enable them to create substantial bottom-line impact for ownership.
We strongly believe that one of the most valuable assets of any building
is its operating team and the deep knowledge and judgment that the team
brings. We think technology's role is to augment and support that asset,
giving engineers better and more digestible information at their
fingertips so they can make smart decisions. Because of that, our
platform has been built, and will continue to be built, in collaboration
with the engineers with whom we work.”

About Cortex

Cortex puts a mobile app in the hands of building engineers, which
provides extremely simple charts and operational recommendations, by
applying machine learning algorithms to building management system and
meter data. In doing so, it allows engineers to operate increasingly
complex HVAC systems more easily, and with greater precision – giving
them better information as they make countless operational decisions
every day. As a result, office buildings using Cortex in NYC save
$200-800k / year in utilities, adding millions in asset value, and
creating a meaningful sustainability impact.

About JLL

JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a professional services and investment management
firm offering specialized real estate services to clients seeking
increased value by owning, occupying and investing in real estate. With
annual fee revenue of $4 billion, JLL has more than 200 corporate
offices and operates in 75 countries worldwide. On behalf of its
clients, the firm provides management and real estate outsourcing
services for a property portfolio of 3 billion square feet and completed
$99 billion in sales, acquisitions and finance transactions in 2013. Its
investment management business, LaSalle Investment Management, has $48.0
billion of real estate assets under management. JLL is the brand name of
Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit www.jll.com.

About the Empire State Building

Soaring 1,454 feet above Midtown Manhattan (from base to antenna), the
Empire State Building, owned by Empire State Realty Trust, Inc., is the
“World’s Most Famous Building.” With new investments in energy
efficiency, infrastructure, public areas and amenities, the Empire State
Building has attracted first-rate tenants in a diverse array of
industries from around the world. The skyscraper’s robust broadcasting
technology supports major television and FM radio stations in the New
York metropolitan market. The Empire State Building was named America’s
favorite building in a poll conducted by the American Institute of
Architects, and the Empire State Building Observatory is one of the
world’s most beloved attractions as the region’s #1 tourist destination.
For more information on the Empire State Building, please visit www.empirestatebuilding.com,
www.facebook.com/empirestatebuilding,
@EmpireStateBldg, www.instagram.com/empirestatebldg,
http://weibo.com/empirestatebuilding,
www.youtube.com/esbnyc
or www.pinterest.com/empirestatebldg/.

About Empire State Realty Trust

Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT), a leading real estate
investment trust (REIT), owns, manages, operates, acquires and
repositions office and retail properties in Manhattan and the greater
New York metropolitan area, including the Empire State Building, the
world's most famous building. Headquartered in New York, New York, the
Company's office and retail portfolio covers 10.1 million rentable
square feet, as of September 30, 2017, consisting of 9.4 million
rentable square feet in 14 office properties, including nine in
Manhattan, three in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and two in
Westchester County, New York; and approximately 700,000 rentable square
feet in the retail portfolio.

Contacts

Great Ink Communications
Eric Waters, 212-741-2977
[email protected]