The Beacon

Lowering Utility Costs in Electrified Multifamily Buildings and Analyzing Embodied Carbon for Retrofit and New Construction

Project Description

The Beacon, located in a designated disadvantaged community within the East Harlem neighborhood is a mixed-use, multi-family residential development designed by Paul Castrucci Architects, PLLC. The project includes two buildings, a new construction and a retrofit spanning a total of 263,321 square feet of new space and 66,510 square feet of retrofitted space. The Beacon will serve mixed-income families and formerly homeless residents with 282 rental units. Designed to meet Passive House PHIUS+ 2021 certification, the buildings will be all-electric and carbon-neutral-ready, featuring roof-top solar PV systems, high-performance heat pumps, energy recovery ventilators (ERVs), and efficient DHW heat pump systems. The residential tower is designed to demonstrate the viability of through-wall heat pumps with Passive House certification as an affordable solution to electrify heating and cooling while decreasing the amount of refrigerant in the building. The project will include a glazed rooftop addition topping the retrofit building to house community facilities. Resilient design strategies will ensure stable interior temperatures during power outages and a flood-responsive layout. With a focus on occupant health and sustainability, the building will meet the Indoor airPLUS standard and provide superior acoustical barriers, filtered fresh air, and multipurpose community spaces for residents' well-being.

Design Team Lead
Paul Castrucci Architects, PLLC (opens in new window)

Project Team
Developer: Ascendant Neighborhood Development and The Community Builders

Lowering Utility Costs in Electrified Buildings

Removing natural gas and fossil fuels from our buildings - also known as building electrification - is a critical step in realizing a clean, resilient and carbon neutral future. The benefits of building electrification are clear, ranging from localized health benefits to deep carbon emission reductions, especially as we increase the amount of renewable energy sources powering the electric grid. Coupled with these important advantages of building electrification, however, is one distinct disadvantage. In many municipalities, electricity costs much more than natural gas. In New York City, electricity costs five times as much as natural gas, as of January 2024. This can result in significant increase in building utility costs, specifically for heating and domestic hot water. Domestic hot water is a particular concern, as unlike heating and cooling, designers and building owners have limited tools in reducing the domestic hot water used in a building. This increase in utility costs due to the change from natural gas to electricity is a utility gap penalty, and requires the attention of designers, building owners, and the building industry at large. If we lose the cost savings of high-performance building practices, we risk disincentivizing investment in sustainable strategies, such as Passive House, and the energy, carbon, and co-benefit improvements they provide.

Analyzing Embodied Carbon for Retrofit and New Construction

• From now until 2050, embodied carbon is a leading contributor of total carbon.
• In the pre-development process, teams should seriously consider whether the project goals can be achieved by re-using existing infrastructure.
• Building performance is another critical component to long term carbon emission performance. The base case energy code buildings studied emit between 2.5x to 3x the operational carbon as the Passive House buildings.
• If the building must be new construction, serious consideration should be given to reducing or eliminating concrete and CMU masonry in the building structure.
• Mass timber and wood frame are promising structural alternatives. Current building codes make implementing wood stud construction impossible in most of NYC, and mass timber and mass timber are not currently a large part of the construction market. Current building codes are weighted against wood stud construction. Mass timber and mass timber projects are limited to early adopters and run the risk of issues that arise from limited experience. Policy makers and industry leaders should coordinate to identify barriers to implementing mass timber and wood frame - including increasing the permitted height of mass timber buildings - and collaborate in addressing concerns and incentivizing alternate structural systems.
• For adaptive re-use, the biggest contributors to embodied carbon for the new construction are removed. This makes other categories, like windows and insulation, more impactful.
• Designers should strongly consider uPVC windows and low carbon intensity insulation where possible.

Media

Pathways to Affordable Electrification: Geothermal, Passive House, and Beyond | Next Up! | PHA Live (opens in new window)

Ana Leopold and Grayson Jordan of Paul A. Castrucci Architects focus on NYSERDA Buildings of Excellence Early Design Support Research into affordability and building electrification. The discussion frames the challenges and opportunities of multi-family affordable electrification while providing an overview of cost reduction strategies with an emphasis on geothermal.