The Texas PACE Authority announced yesterday the first PACE project in the state! More details below:
AUSTIN – What’s a temple to do?
Austin’s Congregation Beth Israel was spending $15,000 annually for repairs on a couple of dated boilers and chillers in its educational wing. Skyrocketing energy bills made temple officials realize how much they also needed more insulation for the wall of windows in its auditorium. Price for upgrades: $450,000.
On Wednesday, Travis County commissioners Gerald Daugherty and Brigid Shea along with county Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant announced in a news conference that Congregation Beth Israel will receive what they need as Texas’ first PACE recipient.
PACE, which stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy, is an innovative financing program – completely free of government mandates and public funding – that enables non-profit, commercial, industrial, multi-family, and agricultural property owners to obtain up to 100 percent of the project financing from low-cost, long-term loans for water conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy projects. Repayments of the loans pass through the county tax office to the lenders.
Austin’s Petros PACE Finance, LLC, gave Congregation Beth Israel 100 percent of the financing it needed. Petros is one of the first specialty finance firms in the nation dedicated to the commercial PACE market, previously providing financing for PACE projects in Michigan.
“Closing the first PACE project in our home state is especially significant for us,” said Mansoor Ghori, CEO of Petros PACE Finance, LLC. “We enjoyed working with the team at Congregation Beth Israel and are proud they were the first of many here in Travis County.”
This project has received additional coverage in the Austin American-Statesman newspaper, in the article “New financing tool allows congregation to move on clean energy project”.
Petros PACE Finance LLC, which provided funding for this project, also issued a news release on the project.