Author: mmyrtetus

By Lennal Kalawa and Lisa Shulock

Philadelphia Energy Authority held a webinar on November 5, 2020 about Philadelphia’s Building Energy Performance Policy, commonly known as Building Tune-Up, and how C-PACE can be used to achieve compliance. The final Building Tune-Up regulations were issued in October 2020. The law was motivated by the need to reduce the carbon footprint of commercial buildings. The law mandates that all large buildings must submit a certification of high energy performance to the city’s Office of Sustainability or conduct tune-ups.

Lisa Shulock from the Philadelphia Energy Authority moderated the panel and she was joined by Zach Greene from the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability, the City agency responsible for overseeing Building Tune-Up, Dave Ferro from Pennoni, an engineering firm, and Stephen Bevilacqua from REVL Capital Group, a C-PACE capital provider.

C-PACE is a financing tool that provides long-term funding for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and water conservation projects. C-PACE financing may be of interest to commercial building owners who want to upgrade their energy systems to achieve high energy performance as an alternative to conducting regular tune-ups.

This bill is directed at all non-residential buildings with indoor floor space of at least 50,000 sq. ft. This includes office buildings, retail stores, municipal buildings, hospitals, schools/universities, and more.

Greene explained that the first compliance deadline is September 30, 2021 for buildings larger than 200,000 Sq. Ft. However, they are granting 6-month extensions due to COVID. The last group of buildings which are between 50,000 and 70,000 Sq. Ft. will need to comply by September 30, 2024.

The first way to comply with this new requirement is to conduct a tune-up every five years. Tune-ups must address base building systems including:

• Building System Maintenance & Repairs
• HVAC Operations and Controls
• Lighting System Assessment
• Domestic Hot Water and Water Usage
• Building Envelope

The tune-ups must be overseen by a “Qualified tune-up specialist” – defined as a licensed Professional Engineer or Certified Energy Manager with at least 7 years of experience. The specialist must be a third-party to the building, unless it is within a large portfolio.

The second pathway is through several high-performance compliance options including ENERGY STAR certification, gold rating or higher for USGBC LEED Operations and Maintenance v4, net zero certification, and many others.

Greene wrapped up by sharing key takeaways: the policy is focused on the operations and maintenance of a building and its existing systems, it does not require capital improvements, it does not require buildings to meet specific levels of efficiency, and the policy aims to increase tenant comfort and decrease energy costs and carbon emissions.

Dave Ferro from Pennoni stated that tune-ups “are all about an effort to control costs, improve occupant comfort, reduce wasted energy and, in many cases, improve cash flow.” Ferro stated that when evaluating a building, they like to start with an ASHRAE level 1 walk-through. “As an engineer, you should be able to walk into a level 1 building and find all the low hanging fruit.” Once you get the level 1 understanding, you can proceed to level 2 and identify no-cost/low-cost energy efficiency measures that can provide payback. One thing that certain engineering companies offer including Pennoni is ongoing monitoring of energy usage and identification of potential problems as an additional way to manage energy use.

If buildings have not yet achieved any of the qualifying high-performance standards, owners and managers have the option of investing in systems to attain one of the compliance options and use C-PACE as the financing tool. Bevilaqua noted the key features of C-PACE include the term of the loan can be up to the maximum useful life of the equipment up to 30 years; the first payment can be delayed two years; the lien stays with the property, not the building owner; financing rates are in the “high 4’s” to 7%; the long term assessment allows for deeper investments in energy efficiency and/or reduces monthly payments for borrowers; and PACE requires no upfront cash and can be treated as an off-balance sheet item. Bevilaqua stated that C-PACE typically will cover up to 30% of a project’s hard cost for new construction and up to 100% of the costs of energy upgrades.

To obtain an energy survey to develop the C-PACE financing package, building owners can reach out to Qualified Engineers listed on the Philadelphia C-PACE website. The owner also needs to select a Capital Provider to provide a term sheet and work with the owner throughout the process of obtaining C-PACE financing.

To qualify for C-PACE in Philadelphia the project must be a commercial or industrial property. C-PACE can be used for upgrades to existing buildings or for gut rehab and new construction projects. The minimum financing amount for a C-PACE project in Philadelphia is $100,000. There is a maximum 95% Lien-to-Value limit and up to a 30-year financing term. There is also the option of retroactively using C-PACE financing with a two year look back.

Shulock wrapped up the webinar by discussing the first two Pennsylvania C-PACE projects which are located in Philadelphia. The first was J-Centrel  in which Twain Financial provided $1,500,000 in financing to Shift Capital for a gut rehab project. The Olde City Day School obtained $519,000 in C-PACE financing from Greenworks Lending to install rooftop solar. It was the first solar project in Pennsylvania to use C-PACE financing.

The Building Tune-Up website can be found here. To watch the recording of the webinar, click here. The slides can also be found on the Philadelphia C-PACE program resources page in the Philadelphia C-PACE webinars section.

Repost from BisNow – October 25, 2020 Matthew Rothstein, Bisnow East Coast

A new development and its use of a new financing tool have the potential to be a template for introducing more environmentally sustainable elements to nearly all forms of commercial real estate.

Shift Capital last year announced the beginning of its J-centrel project in the Harrowgate neighborhood, on the opposite side of Kensington from Fishtown. Like all of Shift’s projects to date, J-centrel is the redevelopment of a historic but rundown factory building into a mixed-use project with multiple features designed to proactively benefit local residents. 

Shift realized upon gaining access to the building to begin work that it would require more time and money than initially estimated, Shift Vice President of Development Maria Sourbeer said at Bisnow’s Philadelphia C-PACE: How To Close A Deal webinar on Thursday. Meanwhile, Philadelphia City Council had recently passed legislation allowing the use of C-PACE, or commercial property-assessed clean energy, financing. Sourbeer sensed an opportunity.

“Coming from a nonprofit background, I’m used to having my ear to the ground for different financing [opportunities],” Sourbeer said.

C-PACE, the commercial-specific form of the more general PACE program, is a funding idea generated at the national level that requires statewide legislation to enact and local governments to execute. C-PACE passed Pennsylvania’s Legislature in 2018 and Philadelphia City Council last year, and J-centrel is the first project in the city to take advantage of it.

C-PACE loans are available to banks and other private lenders, which would pay all of the hard and soft costs associated with improving a commercial building’s environmental sustainability. The borrower pays back the cost through an additional assessment similar to what determines a property tax, which is passed back to the lender. The sum that a project can be loaned through C-PACE is determined by an auditor hired by the borrower, which panelists agreed is a relatively painless process.

“We worked hard with our general contractor to see what would qualify in the energy audit, and we worked through that before we even brought in the auditor,” Sourbeer said. “So when we hired the auditor, we were able to hand them our analysis.”

The term of a C-PACE loan is as long as the improvements remain in place and operational for up to 30 years, in accordance with Philadelphia’s iteration of the program.

Twain Financial Partners had already purchased historic preservation tax credits to help finance J-centrel and agreed to add C-PACE to its agreement with Shift. Since the assessment portion of C-PACE loans occupy the same part of the capital stack as property taxes and do not accelerate in the case of non-payment, senior lender Fulton Financial was comfortable including the new loan despite its technical position in front of the senior mortgage lender in the capital stack, Twain Business Development Officer Paul Thompson said. Functionally, C-PACE repayments occupy a similar place to a mezzanine loan in the repayment order.

“[J-centrel had] some cost overruns, understandably so because it’s an adaptive project,” Thompson said. “So how do you cover that gap while still keeping your senior lender happy? C-PACE makes a lot of sense in that situation because it’s used in qualifying costs that help improve the efficiency of the building.”

J-centrel is the redevelopment of a two-warehouse complex with connecting walkways on J Street, a block away from the Tioga station on the Market-Frankford Line. Three floors of apartments totaling 116 units will sit atop 30K SF of ground-floor commercial space, including retail and a local business accelerator. Two of the apartments will be reserved for those making 40% of the area median income, and 31 will be priced for 70% AMI.

The residential portion doesn’t qualify for C-PACE under Pennsylvania’s version of the program, which meant Shift was forced to split J-centrel into a commercial condo and a residential one. The Philadelphia Energy Authority, the local agency administering the program, is lobbying the state government to add multifamily to the list of qualified projects, PEA Program Manager Lisa Shulock said.

Shift pursued C-PACE financing to shore up a capital shortfall when costs on J-centrel went up, but a building owner can apply at any phase of a project’s life, from design to two years after completion of construction. Even a long-completed building renovating any qualifying building systems can qualify within two years of the process.

Fulton’s traditional senior loan to Shift for J-centrel was for $14.5M, and Twain purchased $2.5M in historic preservation tax credits. By incorporating the $1.5M C-PACE loan into the operating expenses portion of its balance sheet, Shift was able to take on the loan with a 25-year repayment period and not stress its loan-to-value ratio, Fulton Vice President of Commercial Community Development Jeanne Fields said.

“It’s an easy way to bring some additional capital into the project,” Fields said. “We knew the project that needed to be completed, and we were happy that it was able to cover the cost of completion without requiring more money from us.”

Because repayment is based on a tax assessment rather than something more prone to fluctuation, the funds are held in escrow, which takes away from the building’s cash flow, Fields mentioned as a caution to prospective users of the program. Otherwise, C-PACE provided a means to avoid the type of pitfalls common with social impact-focused projects that operate with thin margins.

C-PACE is structured similarly to tax increment financing packages, only with the beneficiary of repayment being a private lender rather than the state or local tax rolls, Thompson said. He believes the familiarity much of the development community has with TIF will help accelerate the adoption of this program.

“[It’s] a TIF structure with a fancy new name, but it will quickly become ubiquitous, not just in Philadelphia but across the country,” Thompson said.

CORRECTION, NOV. 5, 3:45 P.M.: A previous version of this article misstated C-PACE loans’ place in the capital stack. This article has been updated. Contact Matthew Rothstein at matt.rothstein@bisnow.com

Original article: https://www.bisnow.com/philadelphia/news/sustainability/new-green-financing-program-c-pace-shift-capital-106452?utm_source=outbound_pub_20&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_43446&utm_content=outbound_link_11&utm_medium=email

Click here & log-in to Bisnow to view the Philly C-PACE: How to Close a Deal Webinar from October 22, 2020.