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The red brick post-war apartment buildings that comprise New York City's Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village are going green. Blackstone and Ivanhoé Cambridge have announced plans to employ the largest private multi-family residential rooftop solar project in the United States, installing a 3.8 megawatt solar energy system across the property's 22 acres of buildings.
NYC-based renewable energy developer Onyx Renewable Partners serves as the project developer for the installation, which will see the forest of highrise apartments equipped with 9,671 high efficiency solar panels. To triple Manhattan's capacity to generate solar power upon completion in 2019, the panels will supply enough energy to power over 1,000 apartments annually. It is estimated that the project will offset approximately 63,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to taking 12,000 cars off the road for a year.
"We are incredibly proud of the long-term partnership we are building with the StuyTown community," said Nadeem Meghji, Head of Real Estate Americas at Blackstone. "In 2015 we made a commitment to preserve StuyTown's unique heritage and be responsible stewards of its future. This innovative solar project is one of many initiatives we designed and implemented to make the community more sustainable and environmentally friendly."
StuyTown, the largest rental apartment complex in the U.S., has made strides in sustainability in recent years. It is the first multifamily building in the city to receive ENERGY STAR certification. The complex has installed LED lighting, high efficiency hot water heat exchanges, and elevator shaft louvers to minimize heat loss. The neighbourhood's compost waste pickup program averages roughly 10,000 pounds of organic material every week, representing 17 percent of all residential compost waste collected in Manhattan.
StuyTown replaced the Gas House district and opened its first building in 1947. Today, it houses 27,000 New Yorkers and 1.7 percent of Manhattan's population. Ivanhoé Cambridge and Blackstone acquired the massive property in 2015.
