Located in Yonkers, NY, Whitney Young Manor, is a notable affordable housing complex with 195 apartments across 234,000 square feet and 12 stories. Built in 1974, the housing complex is now undergoing a $22 million makeover focusing heavily on decarbonization upgrades. This renovation aims to modernize the buildings by improving insulation and introducing a new heating and cooling system that’s energy efficient. These changes are expected to lower the buildings’ carbon footprint, enhance living conditions, and reduce energy costs. The developer, Paths Development LLC, is leveraging the recapitalization cycle of the property to upgrade its infrastructure and include decarbonization measures to meet its climate goals.
Project Status
Planning
Under Construction
Monitoring & Evaluation
Project Highlights
Investment
12 million
of total investment allocated to bring Whitney Young Manor to carbon neutrality by 2035.
Project Scale
Project has potential replication across a portfolio of 51 existing affordable housing developments managed by Paths.
Testimonial
“The Empire Building Challenge is enabling Paths to pilot innovative approaches to decarbonization while at the same time helping to preserve affordable housing.”
Kenneth Spillberg
Head of Development
Paths Development LLC
Emissions Reductions
This project prioritizes intensive load reduction through envelope improvements and hydronic distribution to improve resident comfort while reducing carbon emissions, utility spend and maintenance costs.
Step 1
Step 1: Examine Current Conditions
A baseline assessment is key to understanding current systems and performance, then identifying conditions, requirements or events that will trigger a decarbonization effort. The assessment looks across technical systems, asset strategy and sectoral factors.
Building System Conditions
Equipment nearing end-of-life
New heat source potential
Comfort improvements
Indoor air quality improvefments
Facade maintenance
Resilience upgrades
Efficiency improvements
Asset Conditions
Recapitalization
Carbon emissions limits
Owner sustainability goals
Market Conditions
Technology improves
Utility prices change
Fuels phase out
Learn More
Whitney Young Manor is an aging affordable housing complex with open balconies, inefficient electric resistance baseboard heating, electric wall sleeve AC units, and gas-fired domestic hot water heaters.
The project team believes that with care, planning, and the appropriate resources, retrofitting these residential buildings can better serve tenants, deliver environmental benefits, and prove financially feasible for owners. Paths leverages the recapitalization cycle of the property to upgrade its infrastructure and include decarbonization measures to meet its climate goals.
This project prioritizes intensive load reduction through envelope improvements and hydronic distribution to improve resident comfort while reducing carbon emissions, utility spending, and maintenance costs.
Step 2
Step 2: Design Resource Efficient Solutions
Effective engineering integrates measures for reducing energy load, recovering wasted heat, and moving towards partial or full electrification. This increases operational efficiencies, optimizes energy peaks, and avoids oversized heating systems, thus alleviating space constraints and minimizing the cost of retrofits to decarbonize the building over time.
Existing Conditions
This diagram illustrates the building prior to the initiation of Strategic Decarbonization planning by the owners and their teams.
Click through the measures under “Building After” to understand the components of the building’s energy transition.
Sequence of Measures
2024
2025
Building System Affected
heating
cooling
ventilation
Learn More
Reduce Energy Load
Whitney Young Manor demonstrates the benefits of over- cladding and hydronic distribution to enable heat pump technology:
New hydronic distribution: High efficiency water-based distribution system, lower supply temperature
The new hydronic distribution piping will enable the integration of different heating sources and allow heat sharing between end uses, such as DHW production during cooling season. The construction team plans to pilot cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) piping to reduce cost and improve durability.
Dedicated Outside Air System (DOAS): decouple ventilation from heat and cooling systems
Envelope Improvements: overclad, roof insulation and window replacement
Over-cladding using Exterior Insulation and Finishing System (EIFS) helps reduce heat loss and air infiltration while avoiding façade maintenance costs associated with LL11. This measure is combined with the new Dedicated Outside Air System (DOAS) to make sure adequate fresh air is injected into the building.
Recover Wasted Heat
The project team plans to integrate different heat sources connected to the central hydronic piping. This includes centralized air source heat pumps, Wastewater Energy Transfer (WET) system and gas-fired condensing boilers as back-up.
Wastewater Heat Recovery: Recapture heat from wastewater using WSHP
Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV): Recapture heat from ventilation exhaust to condition make-up air
Electrification
Central Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP): Maintain design temperatures for the hydronic loop
Water Source Heat Pump (WSHP) for Domestic Hot Water (DHW): DHW production supplied by hydronic loop
Back-up gas condensing boiler: Provide supplemental heat during cold events as resiliency
Step 3
Step 3: Build the Business Case
Making a business case for strategic decarbonization requires thinking beyond a traditional energy audit approach or simple payback analysis. It assesses business-as-usual costs and risks against the costs and added value of phased decarbonization investments in the long-term.
Decarbonization Costs
$12M
Capital costs of decarbonization measures.
Business-as-Usual Costs
$1.92M
Energy cost savings, repairs and maintenance savings, BAU cost of system replacement and upgrades.
Business-as-Usual Risks
N/A
LL97 emissions fines don’t apply at this property.
Decarbonization Value
$6.14M
Incentives from Empire Building Challenge, Low-Carbon Pathways Program, and ConEd Clean Heat.
Net Present Value
TBD
Net difference between the present value of cash inflows and outflows over a period of time.
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Paths Development LLC is a division of Paths, a full-scale, vertically integrated affordable housing developer, builder, and operator. Since 2004, the Paths team has created and preserved high-quality affordable housing across the U.S. that enhances communities and helps residents build better lives. With other 12,000 units across 9 states under management and more than 300 employees, Paths manages a suite of capabilities spanning the entire property life-cycle, including: development, construction, property management, maintenance, and security.
Strategic Decarbonization Action Plan
An emissions decarbonization roadmap helps building owners visualize their future emissions reductions by outlining the CO2 reductions from selected energy conservation measures. This roadmap is designed with a phased approach, considering a 20- or 30-year timeline, and incorporates the evolving benefits of grid decarbonization, ensuring a comprehensive view of long-term environmental impact.
A baseline assessment is key to understanding current systems and performance, then identifying conditions, requirements or events that will trigger a decarbonization effort. The assessment looks across technical systems, asset strategy and sectoral factors.
Building System Conditions
Asset Conditions
Market Conditions
Learn More
Step 2
Step 2: Design Resource Efficient Solutions
Effective engineering integrates measures for reducing energy load, recovering wasted heat, and moving towards partial or full electrification. This increases operational efficiencies, optimizes energy peaks, and avoids oversized heating systems, thus alleviating space constraints and minimizing the cost of retrofits to decarbonize the building over time.
Learn More
Step 3
Step 3: Build the Business Case
Making a business case for strategic decarbonization requires thinking beyond a traditional energy audit approach or simple payback analysis. It assesses business-as-usual costs and risks against the costs and added value of phased decarbonization investments in the long-term.
Decarbonization Costs
Business-as-Usual Costs
Business-as-Usual Risks
Decarbonization Value
Net Present Value
Learn More
Strategic Decarbonization Action Plan
An emissions decarbonization roadmap helps building owners visualize their future emissions reductions by outlining the CO2 reductions from selected energy conservation measures. This roadmap is designed with a phased approach, considering a 20- or 30-year timeline, and incorporates the evolving benefits of grid decarbonization, ensuring a comprehensive view of long-term environmental impact.
Learn More
Project Team
Additional Resources
Tags
Urban Green Council’s Grid Ready: Powering NYC’s All Electric Buildings 2021 report sheds light on how power is delivered to NYC, examines how heat pumps will change electricity demand in buildings, and shows how electrification can be rolled out to carefully manage increasing demand. Additionally, their interactive Grid Ready Mapping Tool allows users to visualize how power demand will grow as fossil fuel heating systems are replaced with electric heat pumps.
A baseline assessment is key to understanding current systems and performance, then identifying conditions, requirements or events that will trigger a decarbonization effort. The assessment looks across technical systems, asset strategy and sectoral factors.
Building System Conditions
Asset Conditions
Market Conditions
Learn More
Step 2
Step 2: Design Resource Efficient Solutions
Effective engineering integrates measures for reducing energy load, recovering wasted heat, and moving towards partial or full electrification. This increases operational efficiencies, optimizes energy peaks, and avoids oversized heating systems, thus alleviating space constraints and minimizing the cost of retrofits to decarbonize the building over time.
Learn More
Step 3
Step 3: Build the Business Case
Making a business case for strategic decarbonization requires thinking beyond a traditional energy audit approach or simple payback analysis. It assesses business-as-usual costs and risks against the costs and added value of phased decarbonization investments in the long-term.
Decarbonization Costs
Business-as-Usual Costs
Business-as-Usual Risks
Decarbonization Value
Net Present Value
Learn More
Strategic Decarbonization Action Plan
An emissions decarbonization roadmap helps building owners visualize their future emissions reductions by outlining the CO2 reductions from selected energy conservation measures. This roadmap is designed with a phased approach, considering a 20- or 30-year timeline, and incorporates the evolving benefits of grid decarbonization, ensuring a comprehensive view of long-term environmental impact.
Learn More
Project Team
Additional Resources
Tags
These case studies cover projects that will dramatically reduce carbon emissions with deep energy retrofits for affordable multifamily housing in the Boston area. Deep energy retrofits dramatically reduce carbon emissions. These renovations transform affordable housing to be highly energy efficient, all-electric, powered by clean renewable energy, and renovated with materials low in embodied carbon. These projects are part of the Advanced Building Construction Collaborative’s demand aggregation. This work aims to demonstrate streamlined deep energy retrofits and retrofits using advanced building construction techniques to accelerate the adoption of this work in the market.
A baseline assessment is key to understanding current systems and performance, then identifying conditions, requirements or events that will trigger a decarbonization effort. The assessment looks across technical systems, asset strategy and sectoral factors.
Building System Conditions
Asset Conditions
Market Conditions
Learn More
Step 2
Step 2: Design Resource Efficient Solutions
Effective engineering integrates measures for reducing energy load, recovering wasted heat, and moving towards partial or full electrification. This increases operational efficiencies, optimizes energy peaks, and avoids oversized heating systems, thus alleviating space constraints and minimizing the cost of retrofits to decarbonize the building over time.
Learn More
Step 3
Step 3: Build the Business Case
Making a business case for strategic decarbonization requires thinking beyond a traditional energy audit approach or simple payback analysis. It assesses business-as-usual costs and risks against the costs and added value of phased decarbonization investments in the long-term.
Decarbonization Costs
Business-as-Usual Costs
Business-as-Usual Risks
Decarbonization Value
Net Present Value
Learn More
Strategic Decarbonization Action Plan
An emissions decarbonization roadmap helps building owners visualize their future emissions reductions by outlining the CO2 reductions from selected energy conservation measures. This roadmap is designed with a phased approach, considering a 20- or 30-year timeline, and incorporates the evolving benefits of grid decarbonization, ensuring a comprehensive view of long-term environmental impact.
Learn More
Project Team
Additional Resources
Tags
The Empire Technology Prize team has produced the New York State Market Insight and Characterization report, which explores the technical challenges posed by achieving efficient decarbonization of heating systems and explores alternatives in two focus areas: high temperature heat pumps, and minimally disruptive distribution system solutions.
