The Most Innovative Urban Development and Real Estate Companies
1. Alloy Development
For building an all-electric skyscraper that proves high-rises can be sustainable
When 505 State Street, a 44-story, mixed-use high-rise, opened in downtown Brooklyn in April 2024, it offered residents an unusual perk: access to a second-floor lounge brimming with ferns, orchids, and lilies. But this so-called Grow Room isn’t the greenest part of this building. For that you need only look to the building’s entrance, where a sculpture of an oversize three-prong plug represents a none-too-subtle calling card for New York’s first all-electric skyscraper, built by Alloy Development.
Embracing electrification comes both from Alloy’s philosophical approach— rooted in the design, construction, and operation of long-term, community-impacting properties throughout New York City—and from timing. During the tower’s design phase in 2019, the city passed Local Law 97, a bid to regulate building emissions by enforcing increasingly strict fines. Alloy decided to get ahead of what seemed like an obvious move toward sustainable buildings by going all-electric. “Installing gas would have been like installing copper telephone lines when fiber was available,” says AJ Pires, president of Alloy. The move was prescient: Beginning next year, the state will prohibit natural-gas appliances in most new buildings.
But 505 State Street goes even further. Residential skyscrapers typically rely on gas boilers and standard kitchen ranges. Alloy rethought the traditional blueprint, installing triple-glazed windows, an energy-efficient facade made of glass and aluminum to lower overall energy needs, an electric boiler in the basement, and induction stoves in all residential units. To hit zero emissions, it signed a power-purchase agreement with a local community solar project. Pires says tenants benefit from less indoor air pollution, quieter interiors, and equivalent utility costs.
505 State is the capstone of Alloy Block, which the company has declared the most sustainable block in Brooklyn. The development contains retail space and two schools designed to rigorous Passive House standards. Another all-electric tower is on the way.
Read more about Alloy Development, honored as No. 44 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2025.
