Mamdani Wants Subway Platforms to Help Heat Buildings
Mayor Mamdani and MTA Chair Janno Lieber have an idea about how to cool sweaty subway platforms.
Unrelenting heat on platforms across New York City’s subway system has long been a problem for straphangers wasting away soporific summer days waiting for delayed trains.
Mamdani and the MTA are looking into a potential win-win solution, conducting a feasibility study on a thermal energy network that would offer some relief to commuters, including many city workers, by capturing some of that heat to use in municipal buildings that sit directly above.
This would be the first attempt to leverage geothermal methods in the city’s subway system, but many buildings across the boroughs are already using underground energy to provide power. St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the New York Botanical Garden use geothermal, as does 1515 Surf Avenue in Coney Island, which the principal of developer LCOR described as a “big geometry puzzle” to set up wells that power the multifamily complex.
The model the city is exploring to heat its own office spaces more cheaply and sustainably using excess subway thermal energy has potential that extends to private buildings, Lieber told reporters gathered on Monday in the sweltering Chambers Street station, where the city will first test out this model.
The MTA chair cited pipe infrastructure under the Lower Manhattan municipal campus as a factor making it possible to explore a potential thermal energy network, but noted systems across the Con Edison steam network and sites like Rockefeller Center as opportunities.
Privately owned buildings located above subway stations could benefit from a geothermal component in their heating systems, not only to save on other energy costs, but also to meet stringent Local Law 97 standards. The law set limits on greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2024, which vary depending on the building’s use for commercial or multifamily, along with its overall size.
Incorporating excess subway heat into a building’s energy mix could help owners avoid steep penalties — currently $268 for every ton of carbon above a building’s limit — and potentially ease compliance overall down the line.
“I mean, the mayor and I were talking about this before we came out this morning,” Lieber said. “We are taking advantage of an existing underground connectivity and network that makes it easy to feed it.”
The Chambers Street and Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall stations’ accumulated summer heat would be captured in boreholes that range from 500 to 600 feet deep, then circulated with pipes and pumps that distribute throughout the city office buildings above.
The city aims to determine whether the model is viable for those stations and the municipal campus by the end of the year, with the mayor noting that the design phase could begin as early as next year if implementation is deemed possible. The study is expected to cost $800,000 and the thermal energy network would be the first of its kind in any U.S. transit system.
The feasibility of the Mamdani administration’s initial plan with the MTA, which also aims to heat City Hall, Tweed Courthouse and Surrogate’s Court, will largely determine whether the subway thermal network model goes wide.
What we’re thinking about: Can you think of any buildings sitting atop the city’s many subway stations that would be good candidates for this geothermal heating model? Any particular platform in desperate need of heat capture? Let me know your hot takes at ben.miller@therealdeal.com.
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— Spencer Davis
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— Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that he urged President Donald Trump to restore protections for Haitian immigrants to legally live and work in the United States, Gothamist reports. A district court judge ruled last week that the Trump administration could end the Temporary Protected Status of 300,000 Haitian immigrants, which expired on July 27.
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Closing time
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— Joseph Jungermann
