Real estate investment firm Castellan Real Estate Partners leveraged opportunities presented by the 2009 financial crisis to built up an extensive real estate portfolio. Today, the company collaborates with New York City agencies to manage and implement building improvements that reduce net energy consumption and utility costs. Recently, Castellan Real Estate Partners received a $1.7 million grant from the New York State Weatherization Assistance Program to subsidize their efforts.The New York State Weatherization Assistance Program simultaneously tackles the common urban issues of excessive energy consumption and unaffordable utility costs. WAP identifies and helps low-income families whose homes may benefit from energy-saving measures, such as heating system replacements, roof insulation, and energy efficient upgrades. The Weatherization Assistance Program demonstrates the economic benefits of green initiatives, as the program produces hundreds of jobs in the green energy sector. WAP works in collaboration with nonprofits, affordable housing developers, and property managers. First established in 1977, the program has benefited the occupants of over 700,000 homes, who save an average of 20 percent on their utility bills. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo pledged 59 million dollars to the program in 2017.
Castellan Real Estate Partners has become a major adopter of environmentally conscious practices in New York City. Since 2009, the firm has completed more than $875 million in real estate transactions. Under managing partner John Salib, Castellan Real Estate Partners has worked closely with nonprofit organizations, including the Brooklyn office of the Community Environmental Center (CEC). The CEC helps New York residents lessen their individual and collective impact on the environment. For more than 20 years, the CEC has offered its construction-industry partners the kind of technical know-how necessary for making buildings “green.” In the two-year period from 2009 to 2011 alone, the CEC’s work led to the improvement of almost 16,000 individual units.Among the CEC’s best-known sponsored events is the Go Green Brooklyn Festival. For a decade, the festival has promoted sustainability through a slate of cultural programs for the Williamsburg and Greenpoint areas. McCarren Park is the venue for the numerous artistic, musical, and culinary activities at the Go Green Brooklyn Festival. Booths offer information on local green vendors as well as educational and volunteer opportunities.
Castellan Real Estate Partners focuses on serving its tenants, investors, and the public as an environmentally forward-thinking company. A major player in the New York real estate market, with more than $875 million in transactions completed since 2009, Castellan Real Estate Partners has made notable purchases and undertaken “green” upgrades of existing multifamily properties in desirable Manhattan neighborhoods.Buildings can be “green” because their design minimizes pollution and environmental impact and contributes to human health and well-being. They can also be “green” thanks to the development of features meant to reduce impact on natural resources. Throughout its life cycle, a green building will maintain processes that ensure the use of less energy, the most efficient water usage, the healthiest form of waste disposal, and the optimization of all its resources for the benefit of the people who live there.The basic idea of constructing or renovating buildings to be green is the fact that the types of structures human beings create have been demonstrated to have often profound effects on the world around them, as well as on the people who inhabit them.
