How to read an NYC DOB filing in five minutes

A DOB NOW job filing looks like a wall of fields. Most of them don't matter for bidding. Five do.

1. Job type

New Building (NB) or Alteration. An NB is a ground-up job; everything downstream follows from that. Alterations range from a kitchen to a full gut of a 12-story building, so they need a second look before you decide they're small.

2. Filing status and dates

The filing date tells you how fresh it is. The status tells you where it sits: still in plan review, approved, or permitted. A job in plan review is early. That's good for getting on the list, but it can also sit for months.

3. Who's on it

Owner, applicant (usually the architect or engineer of record) and, once permits are pulled, the permittee. The owner's name tells you a lot: a big developer's LLC behaves differently from a homeowner. When a GC is named, that's who you call.

4. Size signals

Proposed dwelling units, stories, height and floor area. On an alteration, the job description often says more than the numbers: "combine units," "change of use," "full gut" are all signals of real scope.

5. The work-type permits

Each scope of work pulls its own permit under the job. If yours isn't there yet, nobody has pulled it under their license. That's the opening. It isn't proof the job is open, so make the call.

What to skip

Zoning boxes, fee lines and most of the checklist fields. They matter to the architect, not to someone pricing the work.

Written from the field side of reading NYC filings every morning. Questions: hello@bidseerhub.com.