Multifamily & Commercial Building Owners
Sustainable Middleborough advocated for our town to opt in to the state’s Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE ) program. Owners of commercial, industrial, and multifamily buildings can now use this powerful financial tool for large rehabs and energy retrofits—without taking on debt!
If you are the owner of a multifamily building or any commercial building, there’s a brand new tool to finance weatherization and other energy retrofits to reduce your utility bills. It’s called Property-Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE. Sustainable Middleborough advocated for this, and in January 2022 Middleborough became one of the early towns in the state to opt in.
- PACE can cover a lot of your rehab job—things like weatherization and air sealing, but also new heating-cooling systems, roofs, windows, doors, solar panels, motorized equipment, and more.
- Commercial, industrial, nonprofit buildings, and multifamily buildings with five or more units are all eligible. So are mixed commercial-residential buildings (no minimum on units), like many in Middleborough Center.
- The building owner still gets financing through a bank. But it doesn’t show up as debt on the books. It’s a betterment or lien (like a water or sewer lien) that owners pay back on their property taxes. And the payback period is 20 years, instead of 5 to 7.
- The 20-year projected savings must be greater than the cost, which MassDevelopment calculates in the application. In essence, payments are made from the savings. To achieve that level of savings, a PACE rehab project is usually in the $250,000 range or higher.
DID YOU KNOW?
Insulation, weatherization, and other energy retrofits are good places to invest your money right now. Well-insulated homes and buildings have higher resale values.
TO LEARN MORE
To find out if your project qualifies and learn more about PACE, go to: massdevelopment.com/pace; or email questions to pace@massdevelopment.com.
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