Virginia PACE Authority Launches Industry-First Marketplace for Funding Building Improvements

    NORFOLK, VA, June 23, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Virginia PACE Authority (VPA) was a 2020 winner of the RISE Resilient Innovations Challenge, a Virginia funding challenge which provides funds for worthy efforts to address the sea rise threat in the Hampton Roads region of the state. VPA won funding for several initiatives, including one which will have a national impact: a web-based marketplace where Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy ("C-PACE") funding solutions are matched with projects targeting resiliency and energy efficiency improvements on commercial buildings.

VPA is using part of its RISE Challenge award to exclusively license a web-based marketplace that starting immediately will allow a building owner to register a project and instantly confirm its geographic eligibility, look at initial funding options, and get competing annual financing quotes from different C-PACE options. VPA's web-based marketplace, which is operational at Virginia.PACEfi.com has been developed by Los Angeles-based CleanFinancing LLC, a firm that packages financing for long-term, critical capital improvements like energy independence and storm resiliency. VPA will have exclusive management of PACEfi within Virginia, while CleanFinancing will offer PACEfi in other C-PACE enabled states.

Abby Johnson, VPA's President and Executive Director shared that "We are excited that VPA will be able to offer so many Virginia property owners and developers a web-based single-point solution to access financing options in minutes, allowing them to make critical resiliency and carbon reducing improvement decisions. She added: "the fundamental problem is the lack of funding available to mitigate or adapt existing buildings for resiliency projects. C-PACE financing addresses this problem by offering fixed rate, long term loans that cover 100% of hard and soft project costs. VPA's collaboration with CleanFinancing provides C-PACE lenders, property owners and contractors an industry-first web-based marketplace that responds to our specific needs in Hampton Roads."

"The C-PACE industry is a start-up in a big hurry" says Philippe Hartley, CleanFinancing's Managing Director. "Real estate owners with buildings needing improvements hardly know the acronym C-PACE, much less the funders within it. Yet the program empowers a powerful pool of new capital urgently needed at this juncture to meet local, regional, state and national resiliency and carbon zero objectives. Thanks to this association with VPA, PACEfi will help create a multi-state marketplace where funders wishing to participate can have their diverse offers exposed to the kinds of projects they wish to finance. In minutes, someone with a project in Virginia can now check eligibility, choose a finance product, receive reliable estimates of annual payments as well as program-specific features, and get pre-qualified for funding." PACEfi is also being simultaneously launched in CA as PACEfi.com, where funding solutions from up to four different PACE programs are presented via the project description process. PACEfi will soon enter other PACE markets in the US. The program is part of the US Green Building Council 2021 Accelerator.

C-PACE as a private infrastructure upgrade funding mechanism -
Around the country, C-PACE financing is enabled in 38 states and the District of Columbia and has funded nearly $2.5 billion of clean energy and resilient projects on thousands of existing and new commercial properties. Legislated at the state level, it is a powerful way to attract significant funding for the urgent infrastructure upgrades imposed by the growing climate crisis. C-PACE attracts long-term private financing for building owners to improve their buildings by allowing the repayment of that financing through a special, voluntary special tax assessment. VPA has created a framework to leverage C-PACE in Virginia.

About VPA
Virginia PACE Authority (VPA) (https://virginiapace.com/) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that designs and administers Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) loan programs for Virginia communities. We offer a uniform, cost-effective and highly innovative C-PACE program platform that fosters greater economic development activity and promotes the Commonwealth's clean energy goals. As the program administrator, VPA works with commercial businesses, property owners, contractors and local governments to facilitate the financing of energy efficiency, renewable energy and resilient projects on both existing buildings and new developments.

About CleanFinancing LLC
CleanFinancing LLC (https://www.cleanfinancing.com/), founded in 2014, is a Los Angeles-based firm that helps fund upgrades to commercial building infrastructure to make it stronger and greener. The company solves the funding needs of project developers, contractors and property owners by packaging a variety of funding mechanisms, including leasing, tax-based structures including for non-profits, and specialty financing. CleanFinancing specializes in commercial and industrial projects, both new and retrofit. The firm is a specialist in commercial PACE financing. It was founded in 2014.

About the RISE Challenge
"The objective of the RISE Challenge is to excite entrepreneurs about contributing solutions to our pressing regional environmental exposure. A method for bringing more capital faster definitely fits the ambitions of our program" comments Katerina Oskarsson, Chief Strategy Officer of RISE Resilient Innovations, the sponsors of the RISE Challenge.

Virginia PACE Authority Contact: Abigail Johnson
Phone: 757-603-3555
Email: [email protected]

CleanFinancing/PACEfi Contact: Philippe Hartley
Phone: 866.824.8442
Email: [email protected] (Subj: PR inquiry)

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