Paths Development LLC

A radical transformation for Yonkers’ affordable housing

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.

As part of a major property recapitalization, Whitney Young Manor is undergoing a major $22 million renovation, with nearly $12 million allocated to the project’s decarbonization effort, inclusive of all energy efficiency measures.

The retrofit project will showcase how to leverage a recapitalization opportunity to comprehensively retrofit energy systems and modernize an affordable housing complex.

The comprehensive project includes major building envelope over cladding that will dramatically improve insulation to reduce heating and cooling loads. This will be combined with a new centralized heat pump system to serve all heating, cooling, and domestic hot water needs.

The project serves as a good demonstration project for residential buildings with electric resistance heating and a natural gas domestic hot water system. The proposed centralized system can also be applied to properties with existing hydronic distribution.

The upgrades at Whitney Young Manor target the largest sources of carbon emissions at the property and include the implementation of the latest technologies in exterior insulation, air source heat pumps, and ventilation. The project will give the property a new aesthetic, reduce operating expenses, provide more comfortable heating and cooling, improve maintenance procedures, increase reliability, and drastically reduce the property’s carbon emissions while enabling deeper future decarbonization upgrades.

The Empire Building Challenge

The Empire Building Challenge (EBC) is a $50 million investment by New York State to demonstrate different pathways for achieving carbon neutrality in tall buildings. Through the establishment of a private-public partnership with leading real estate owners and their engineering experts, exciting approaches to cold climate decarbonization are being tested in the New York market. The EBC’s new Retrofit Playbook for Large Buildings includes step-by-step guidance and real-world case studies for decarbonizing and modernizing a range of building types. With the potential to replicate these solutions across real estate controlled by the first cohort of Empire Building Challenge partners and beyond, the impact of each project will accelerate New York’s progress toward the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s (Climate Act)  goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 85% by 2050.