New York just put $75 million on the table for builders who leave gas out of new homes entirely. The heat pump incentive is part of a $135 million New Efficient Homes New York package the state announced Sept. 25, and it comes with a list of ten award-winning projects that says a lot about who’s actually doing all-electric multifamily work in the state.
One MEP firm is on three of them.
What the heat pump incentive for new construction requires
The $75 million Heat Pump Incentive covers single-family homes, small residential buildings and multifamily buildings under 50,000 square feet anywhere in the state. The catch is full electrification, and it isn’t optional. Heating, cooling and ventilation all have to be electric, using cold-climate air-source heat pumps or ground-source systems, and a ground-source project has to meet the whole-home electrification requirement too. Payment is per dwelling unit, with an adder for projects in disadvantaged communities. Enrollment stays open until Dec. 15, 2029.
A second pot, $25 million for Enhanced Design Support, pays for design and planning help plus training for builders, developers and design firms. It covers new construction, gut rehabs and adaptive reuse, paid per unit on small homes and per square foot on multifamily. The money comes from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the state’s Clean Energy Fund and the Public Service Commission’s 2025 building electrification order, according to the state’s announcement.
No per-unit dollar figure was published. Builders pricing a 2027 start won’t redesign a mechanical system around an incentive they can’t quantify.
Buildings of Excellence winners and the firms behind them
The rest of the package is a new round of NYSERDA’s Buildings of Excellence competition: more than $12 million to ten projects. All ten are zero-emission buildings, all include solar, three include battery storage and eight are committed to Passive House. Eight serve low- to moderate-income residents. Two projects in Auburn and Syracuse split $2.4 million, and eight in New York City share $9.7 million.
The team list is where it gets interesting for anyone bidding this work. Ettinger Engineering Associates, a New York MEP firm, is named on 153 Nevins in Brooklyn with Fifth Avenue Committee, on Arverne East Building I in Far Rockaway with The Bluestone Organization and MEGA Contracting Group, and on Hillside North Building in Queens with Mural Real Estate Partners. Exchange already lists Arverne East Building D, the net-zero phase that came before it.
Other winners include Strada Development and Gilbane Development Company on 1931 Lafayette North Tower in the Bronx, Curtis+Ginsberg Architects with JASA in Far Rockaway, Ashley McGraw Architects on the Syracuse Bread Factory, and Sustainable Comfort with Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services on Polaris in Auburn. Innovate Prefabricate is on the ipHaus 722 Lafayette Gateway Project in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Why all-electric housing funding keeps favoring repeat teams
Passive House multifamily in New York City is still a specialist market. The same handful of engineers, envelope consultants and GCs keep showing up because owners chasing these awards want teams that’ve already passed blower-door tests on large multifamily buildings. That concentration helps the projects pencil. It also means the bench for the next round isn’t as deep as the dollar figures suggest.
That next round is already scheduled: $20 million, up to $1.5 million per project, with applications due Jan. 20, 2027. The state says it’ll prioritize conversions and high-rise cost compression. Maryland took a different route this month, tying $103 million in electrification grants to existing commercial buildings and its performance standard. New York’s aiming at buildings that haven’t been drawn yet, where switching to heat pumps costs the least.