Starwood Sustainable Credit, a newly launched affiliate of Starwood Capital Group, has committed $500 million to CleanFund, an affiliate of Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) origination platform.
The investment will support the adoption of clean energy and other value-added improvements to commercial properties nationwide. In addition, entities affiliated with Vulcan Capital have made a follow-on investment in CleanFund, atop their investment in 2017.
“CleanFund has been the leader in taking C-PACE to nearly $1 billion in total funding since inception of this innovative tool, and our aim is to extend that severalfold as more property owners learn about the advantages of C-PACE,” said Lain Gutierrez, who recently appointed CleanFund CEO. He is a banking and structured-finance executive with more than 28 years of experience in originating, analyzing, structuring and rating asset-backed financings. Gutierrez most recently founded SolFin Capital LLC, a specialty finance company with institutional backing that finances solar arrays in new residential developments.
C-PACE financing was introduced in California in 2008 as a form of voluntary parcel tax-assessment financing to fund qualifying improvements that reduce energy and water usage, and which provide seismic and other resiliency benefits to commercial properties. C-PACE financing for commercial real estate, which has been adopted in 35 states and the District of Columbia, allows property owners to repay qualified investments for building upgrades and new construction as a line item on the property’s ordinary property tax bills.
