DOE Features Greenworks Project in Resiliency Toolkit
Commercial PACE is versatile. The public policy and financial product not only supports energy efficiency and clean energy, but also resiliency against natural disasters, grid interruptions, and other emergencies.
Better Buildings, an initiative of U.S. Department of Energy, is bringing this later function of C-PACE to the attention of commercial property owners by publishing a “Resiliency Toolkit” and promoting a follow-up webinar for interested commercial real estate owners and developers. The toolkit and subsequent webinar is a series of deep-dive case studies. 
“The financing industry continues to create innovative mechanisms to spur investment in building energy efficiency,” said Maria Vargas, Director of the Better Buildings Challenge at the US Department of Energy. “In the recently released Commercial PACE Financing for Resiliency Toolkit, we are helping to bring one of these solutions to the market. The toolkit provides a one-stop shop for building owners who want to leverage CPACE financing to improve energy performance and resiliency of their facilities.”
One of Greenworks Lending’s early projects, the microgrid at 777 Main Street in Hartford features prominently as an example of a fuel cell and solar array being deployed to ensure uptime for critical building operations. The former Hartford National Bank Building was redeveloped by Becker and Becker into mixed-use building featuring 285 apartments (including 59 affordable units) and 6 retail shops with the anchor store targeted for occupancy by a tenant with resiliency requirements, the national retailer CVS.
“Better Buildings is an advocacy group that shares best practices across industries,” explained Alexandra Cooley, COO and Co-founder of Greenworks Lending. “We are honored to have our work showcased. The Becker and Becker project demonstrates the resiliency features of C-PACE as well as efficiency and our ability to integrate the financing into a complex capital stack. Our favorite part of the project is simpler. The LEED-certified building has greater than 90% occupancy, which means the revitalized-repurposed building is meeting the needs of the community,” continued Cooley.
Greenworks Lending’s Andrew Zech will participate in a conference call regarding the toolkit on Wednesday, May 30th @ 1 pm EST to discuss the project alongside representatives from CleanFund and Counterpointe SRE who’s C-PACE funded projects were also featured in the report. To tune into the webinar, please register here.
To view the toolkit, visit: https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/toolkits/commercial-pace-financing-resiliency