Ithaca and Tompkins County officials are advancing sustainability and accessibility after receiving a $250,000 Municipal Investment Fund grant “aimed at accelerating local deployment of clean, safe, reliable energy projects.” The town and county will be partnering with Community Sustainability Partners and Cornell University’s Environmental Systems Lab to develop these funds.
In October 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency gave Tompkins County a Phase 1 Municipal Investment grant focused on predevelopment of clean energy projects.
Ithaca and Tompkins County are implementing this grant through a private-public partnership model. While the city and county are responsible for identifying projects, Cornell’s lab provides the data and technical analysis necessary, and the Community Sustainability Partners is a non-profit that helps structure projects to attract outside investors.
This is part of a nationwide $5 billion capital grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Clean Investment Fund. Phase 1 funding was provided to 49 local governments, with Tompkins County being the only New York State county to receive funding.
Projects the city and county are thinking about developing are ones with a focus on both equity and sustainability. Some of these projects include the SouthWorks redevelopment project to develop a sustainable residential community, as well as upgrading the Southside Community Center into a resilience hub for severe weather.
According to Siobhan Hull, sustainability planner for the city of Ithaca, the development of these projects is bundled into a portfolio under the same funding, which allows the city to focus on developing multiple projects at once rather than individually. This will give the city an advantage when moving forward with projects as they try to attract investors.
“By being able to aggregate all of these projects together into a cohesive portfolio, we're hoping that will open the door to new investments and financial tools that allow us to move these clean energy projects forward,” Hull said.
This funding specifically targets pre-development costs, which include technical studies, design plans, permitting and other early groundwork necessary to build a foundation before construction can begin.
Hull explained to The Sun that this pre-developmental stage is often where projects are halted from advancing.
Hull explained that traditional financing rarely covers these preliminary costs, resulting in many promised clean energy projects not reaching the construction phase.
This grant aims to bridge the gap between planning and construction as it helps the region prepare projects for investment.
Ester Toporovsky, executive director of CSP, described predevelopment as “imperative, as you need it to assess the opportunity, design the project, and set up the right financial models. It helps get a project to a financeable state.”
Creating a Pipeline For Local Projects
According to Hull, through this fund, Ithaca and Tompkins County have identified 20 potential clean energy and climate resilience projects that could benefit from this funding, including both large-scale developments and smaller, more community-focused projects.
One example Hull said the city is “particularly excited about” is the SouthWorks redevelopment project, a plan to transform a former industrial facility into a residential community that incorporates renewable energy infrastructure.
This would include site-wide geothermal heating, a cleaner, more energy-efficient heating system that relies on transferring heat from below the ground. It would also include a microgrid with on-site solar and battery storage and potentially hydrogen energy storage.
Other proposed projects focus on community resilience and energy affordability. One project in particular, which Hull noted, would be to upgrade the Southside Community Center into a resilience hub capable of serving as a safe space for marginalized populations in the case of extreme weather.
Alongside sustainability, the city is using these funds to focus on equity and social justice. Hull said the city has been “intentional” with highlighting projects that seek to benefit marginalized members of the community. These projects include energy efficiency upgrades, workforce training opportunities and resilience infrastructure.
“We’re hoping to see things like district geothermal that can benefit entire communities,” said Toporovsky. “Decarbonizing affordable housing and creating solar access for low and moderate-income communities would also be a really big win.”
By identifying viable projects and creating a pipeline of investment opportunities, the program aims to attract future investors once the predevelopmental stage is over, according to Hull.
The City’s Digital Twin
Cornell researchers at the Environmental Systems Lab are contributing to these developments by creating a digital model of the entire city known as a “digital twin.” The model will include the entire city — around 29,000 buildings, with a unique model for each one.
The model combines data from building permits, tax records and utility energy data to estimate how the buildings are currently performing and how they might respond to retrofits such as an electrified heating system and improved insulation.
Prof. Timur Dogan, architecture, director of the Environmental Systems Lab, explained the process of how this model works to The Sun.
“We run buildings through hundreds of different options of things one could do,” Dogan said. “That gives us a sense of what the priorities should be in retrofitting.”
The goal of the model is to identify projects that could deliver the greatest environmental impact at the lowest cost. The tool can also be layered with demographic data to ensure climate initiatives are assisting those most vulnerable to energy costs and climate impacts. Cornell researchers are already exploring how this modeling framework could be scaled to other New York cities, such as Albany.
Dogan said Ithaca’s collaboration with Cornell provides the city with uniquely strong access to energy data and modeling tools, resources typically only available in large cities.
“Cities like New York or Boston have teams doing this work, but Ithaca may be the only smaller city with this capability,” Dogan said.
If successful, the program could eventually be expanded to other local municipalities.
Looking Ahead
While these projects are still in the predevelopmental phase, success will ultimately depend on whether the projects can attract additional investment and move into the construction phase, according to Hull.
If successful, the program could create new energy jobs, lower energy costs and help Ithaca reach its broader climate goals outlined in the Ithaca Green New Deal.
Overall, Hull hopes this initiative helps to reshape how municipalities think about climate projects.
“We’re trying to show that decarbonization can be approached in a way that centers equity and community impact,” she said. “And that those projects can still attract funding and move forward.”
Valencia Massaro is a member of the Class of 2029 in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She is a staff writer for the News department and can be reached at vmassaro@cornellsun.com.
