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Vacaville council opts into county C-PACE financing to advance Home2Suites hotel
Summary
The City Council voted to opt Vacaville into the county commercial PACE program so a developer can access about $9 million in financing for a Home2Suites by Hilton project; city staff and the PACE administrator said the financing is strictly a funding mechanism and does not change land-use approvals.
On Jan. 28 the Vacaville City Council voted to opt the city into Solano County’s commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) program so the Home2Suites by Hilton hotel project can pursue about $9,000,000 in energy-efficiency financing. The council approved the resolution by voice vote after staff and the PACE administrator answered council and public questions.
Council members and staff said the action is limited to authorizing the financing pathway; it does not change planning or permitting authority. Don Burris, director of economic development services, told the council: “We are bringing, this resolution forward to the council, for energy efficiency, projects and financing for the Home 2 Suites, a hotel project… The purpose of the resolution is for the city to be able to opt in the county's program that already exists so that the hotel company can acquire financing to do those energy improvement projects for their new hotel project. We're looking at a total of $9,000,000, that the hotel developer would receive, in financing.”
John Kenny, founder and CEO of CleanFund and administrator for the joint-powers authority CETA, described commercial PACE as a public–private financing tool and contrasted it with residential PACE. “What PACE is, just to remind people, is it's a public private partnership enabled by state law,” Kenny said, and explained commercial transactions involve lender consent, longer underwriting and legal review.
Developers and their representative told council the lender support is critical to completing the project. Alan Haddix, project civil engineer for Home2Suites, read a letter from the developer and said, “We're only weeks away from starting vertical construction on that project,” and urged approval. Several members of the public asked whether authorizing C-PACE financing could indirectly encourage commercial battery-energy-storage projects; both Burris and Kenny answered that the opt-in is strictly a financing mechanism and “we cannot finance anything that's not approved.”
After public comment the council moved, seconded and approved the resolution by voice vote. Mayor Carley urged moving forward: “So let's get this hotel built.” Council did not record a roll-call tally in the meeting transcript.
Why it matters: The opt-in allows the hotel owner to pursue a low-cost, property-secured financing package intended to pay for energy-efficiency and resiliency upgrades. City staff said the program will be administered through the California Enterprise Development Authority (CETA) joint-powers authority and CleanFund as PACE administrator; bond counsel for the program is Kutak Rock.
The council action was limited to the financing opt-in; any land-use or permit approvals remain governed by existing local processes and were not changed by the vote.
