Energy Retrofit: Urban Horizons I

Applying High Performance, Green Building Strategies to Existing Buildings

Although this boiler room may have been state of the art in 1997 when the building was rehabilitated, we are considering a complete overhaul, including more efficient boilers and a combined heat & power generator (CHP), which converts natural gas to electricity and recaptures waste heat for use in the building.

Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030 acknowledges the challenges facing New York City as it continues to grow by a projected 1 million residents over the next twenty-five years. Not only will this demographic explosion place a great strain on the city's existing transportation, housing, and power infrastructure-but the growing consumption of resources will make it even more difficult for the city to meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gasses by 30%.

The plan identifies increasing efficiency of buildings as the single most significant intervention to achieve this ambitious goal. In this context, retrofitting existing buildings has emerged as a critical policy issue. It will not be enough to merely build all new buildings to high efficiency standards. After all, there are vastly more buildings in New York City that have been built than will be built in the next twenty-five years. Today's existing stock of buildings will comprise approximately 90% of existing buildings in 2030. Already, banks and energy service companies have begun collaborating to develop new partnerships and financing tools to enable building owners to retrofit their buildings.

WHEDCo is ahead of the curve on this issue. Thanks to a generous three-year commitment from the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and other funders (including Citi Community Capital, NYS DHCR Weatherization Program, The Home Depot Foundation, NYSERDA, and Rhodebeck Charitable Trust), we are currently in the second year of an initiative to retrofit our existing Urban Horizons building. Following a successful collaboration on the Urban Horizons II & Foyer new construction development, WHEDCo has engaged Steven Winter Associates (SWA) to begin a thorough energy audit and feasibility studies to cut the building's energy usage by more than one-third. SWA technicians have already completed an exhaustive analysis of the buildings' energy systems, examining every light fixture, meter, heat and hot water boiler, and window in the ten-story building. Their proposed scope of work includes replacing showerheads and toilets, bi-level lighting controls, advanced metering, and a state-of-the-art combined heat and power (CHP) micro-turbine. Their calculations demonstrate that a $1 million investment in upgrading our building systems will result in annual savings in excess of $150,000 (paying back the investment in 6.4 years).

Apartments at Urban Horizons are individually metered. Advanced metering has the potential to take advantage of lower electricity rates, allowing us to pass along savings to residents.

Urban Horizons I is participating in a demand response program to reduce peak demand on the grid and possibly generate revenue for WHEDCo in the form of incentives.

Once completed The Urban Horizons Retrofit Project will bring WHEDCo's housing development work full circle: a beautiful building built in the 1920s, abandoned in the 1970s, rehabilited and preserved in the 1990s will be brought into the 21st century through innovation, careful planning, and a commitment to bringing the highest quality design and construction into affordable housing.

Urban Horizons I will serve as a replicable model of how to "green" existing affordable housing developments.

For more information on WHEDCo's green new construction buildings, vist Urban Horizons II & Foyer.