KarunaNews Story

From the outside, 420 Beekman Hill in Midtown East looks like your standard Manhattan co-op building: A 110-unit tower built in the 1960s. But its façade masks an innovative upgrade that put it on the cutting edge of energy efficiency. As one of the first co-ops in Manhattan to fully electrify its heating and cooling systems with heat pumps, it is a model for making older housing more sustainable. Prior to electrification, the building’s system ran on gas-powered steam – one of the least efficient methods of heating and cooling. With its new retrofit, the building has met its carbon emissions reduction target 25 years ahead of the city’s carbon neutrality goal. The landmark law, passed in 2019, requires buildings of more than 25,000 square feet to reduce their carbon emissions by 40 percent (compared to 2006 levels) by the year 2030, and 80 percent by 2050. NYC Accelerator, a program of the Office of Climate and Environmental Justice that offers free assistance for energy efficiency upgrades, made the co-op aware of grants for which they were eligible and was a huge help in the application process. The co-op secured $154,000 from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and $1.1 million from utility ConEdison to help pay for the project.