The Judd Foundation is getting a boost thanks to a first-of-its-kind grant from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s new Climate Initiative that will help the 25-year-old institution achieve its ambitious sustainable conservation goals over the next decade.

The foundation, located in the historic 101 Spring Street building, will put the grant money toward commissioning a study of its New York office’s energy use and mechanical systems. The Judd Foundation has been committed to maintaining both it and the organization’s Marfa campus at a great cost since the artist’s death in 1994 at age 65. 

Donald Judd moved to the cast-iron building in 1968 as a budding minimalist sculptor and helped marshall in the image of SoHo as an arts district comparable to Montmartre or London’s Square Mile. Judd eventually came to disdain the commercialism created in the neighborhood created by the influx of the professionalized art world, which had begun its second wave transformation into a shopping center by the time his children formed the foundation posthumously in 1996.

The foundation paid for a $23 million renovation in 2014 that garnered an AIA New York chapter design award. The Frankenthaler grant was awarded in the Scoping category, designating its intent to “help [the museum] understand the climate and energy mitigation opportunities at their facilities,” according to a press statement.

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The cost of energy comprises the second largest portion of museum budgets according to the Frankenthaler Foundation Climate Initiative. Museums everywhere are spending increasing amounts to adapt their collections to climate change, a reality the Climate Initiative's co-sponsors said will only continue to swell in coming years.

“As we enter this decisive decade in the fight against climate change, every sector of the U.S. economy is called to aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” RMI CEO Jules Kortenhorst said in a statement. “Charitable institutions will require significant support for these technical and capital projects, but the good news is that so much of energy efficiency is cost-effective, providing financial benefits while reducing emissions. Every efficiency and clean generation project funded through the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative will be a form of endowment investment for the museum recipient and for the planet.”

The Frankenthaler initiative has given out over $5 million to 79 different cultural institutions as part of its inaugural cohort of grantees. A full announcement of this year’s recipients can be found here.