Cornerstone Apartments

The Missoula Housing Authority completed the Cornerstone Apartments in 2020, an urban infill project with 12, one-bedroom homes for very-low-income people (<30% AMI), with priority given to frequent users of the City of Missoula’s emergency response systems. Due to budget limitations, MHA was initially forced to remove high-efficiency air-source heat pumps from the design and replace them with less-efficient electric resistance heaters. These were cheaper to install, but more expensive and energy-intensive to operate over the long term. No one wanted to do this, so the question arose: How could we “bridge the funding gap” to include the heat pumps?

Clearwater Credit Union stepped in, funding half the cost of the heat pumps and claiming the greenhouse gas reductions from the lifetime energy savings.

The project generated 877 metric tons of CO2 equivalent savings, enough to offset two years of Clearwater’s emissions, at a price of ~$25 / ton.
The lower energy, operation and maintenance costs will save MHA ~$107,000 over the lifetime of the system.

If you'd like to read more about how we calculated these savings and the carbon offset, or about additional considerations, including the amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved, please view this technical memo.

We co-hosted a virtual ribbon cutting in November 2020. View the slides here and / or the zoom recording below to learn all about this project, including who it benefits, how it came together, and more.

Cornerstone Apartment Virtual Tour and Carbon Offset Launch