C-PACE for retail, mixed-use and restaurant buildings

Retail owners rarely hear about C-PACE in the same breath as hotels or office towers, but it has quietly appeared in a run of retail and mixed-use capital stacks. This guide sets out what the published deals say: who funded what, what the money paid for, and how the structure sat beside the senior loan. Every deal figure below comes from the report linked to it, checked on 26 October 2026.

C-PACE, briefly: it pays for qualifying energy, water, renewable and resiliency improvements and is repaid through an assessment on the property tax bill. For how it ranks against the mortgage, see our capital stack guide.

Why retail and mixed-use owners are using it

The clearest statement of the trend comes from ICSC. In a 21 July 2025 article, ICSC interviewed two Bayview PACE executives about West Harbor in Los Angeles and the wider retail market.

Anne Hill of Bayview PACE said that C-PACE has historically been very heavy in hospitality, but that “we have the highest percentage of retail that we’ve ever had in our pipeline.” She also said C-PACE is now more mainstream, that it is being used as part of the core financing of the deal, and that for a number of reasons lenders now consent to it.

Her colleague Brian Selander gave the cost argument: C-PACE is generally less expensive, so the result is a lower blended rate. He told ICSC that C-PACE was pricing closer to 300 basis points over the 10-year Treasury, against debt fund financing that might be 500 to 600 basis points over 30-day SOFR. That is a capital provider’s view of the market in mid-2025, not a quote for your deal.

ICSC also cited the C-PACE Alliance for the size of the market: $9.8 billion of C-PACE originated by the end of 2024, including $2.6 billion in 2024.

Five retail and mixed-use deals, and what they show

West Harbor, Los Angeles: C-PACE layered behind C-PACE

West Harbor is a waterfront retail development at 612-1422 S. Harbor Blvd. in San Pedro. REBusinessOnline reported on 17 February 2025 that the partnership behind it — the City of Los Angeles, the Port of Los Angeles, Jerico Development and The Ratkovich Co. — had received $61.5 million for the recapitalization of West Harbor, structured with both a senior loan and subordinate C-PACE financing. The new lender was Oceanview Life and Annuity Co., an affiliate of Bayview Asset Management, and the proceeds were to fund the completion and stabilization of the dining, entertainment and retail project. The site spans 42 acres and was more than 80 percent pre-leased.

ICSC’s account fills in the stack: a $10 million C-PACE financing for the second phase and a $51.5 million senior loan from Oceanview, with the phase 1 C-PACE left in place. REBusinessOnline says the new C-PACE funds sequentially behind the existing C-PACE lender. West Harbor also sits on a ground lease from the Port of Los Angeles, which ICSC says supported the project. Selander’s own reading: “I believe that it was a cost of capital decision to use C-PACE.”

The lesson for retail owners is that an existing C-PACE assessment did not stop a recapitalization. It stayed, and more was added.

The Allen, Houston: a stand-alone retail building inside a mixed-use project

REBusinessOnline reported on 12 June 2024 that Lone Star PACE provided $15 million in C-PACE financing for a 53,000-square-foot retail property within The Allen, a mixed-use development near downtown Houston owned by DC Partners. Lone Star PACE worked with Nuveen Green Capital, the lender. The report does not list the measures financed.

The point here is the unit of financing: the report describes the C-PACE as being for a retail property within a larger mixed-use project.

Nashville: a retroactive deal for a restaurant group’s retail building

On 5 August 2025, Amalgamated Bank announced, in a press release carried by Global Fintech Series, that it had closed a nearly $1.7 million retroactive C-PACE financing under the Davidson County C-PACER Program, using Allectrify’s FASTPACE platform. The financing recapitalized a recently completed project: a gut rehab of an 80-plus-year-old retail structure owned and operated by A. Ray Hospitality, a local restaurant group. The space is home to several small businesses, including a location of M.L. Rose Craft Beer & Burger.

The work included interior and exterior LED lighting, high-efficiency HVAC, improved roof and wall insulation, energy-efficient windows and storm resiliency measures. Whether retroactive C-PACE is available depends on the state programme and its look-back window; our retroactive C-PACE guide sets out the windows we could tie to a dated programme document.

AREA15, Las Vegas: C-PACE as a large construction tranche

Commercial Observer reported on 7 January 2025 that Fisher Brothers secured $161 million in construction financing to expand AREA15, an experiential retail and entertainment complex in Las Vegas. North Bridge provided $108 million in C-PACE construction financing and Acore Capital a $53 million senior construction loan. The C-PACE was described as a synthetic A note equal to 35 percent of the total stabilized value of the expansion, and the expansion was to add nearly 300,000 rentable square feet.

Chapman and Cutler, counsel to North Bridge, says the financing was named the 2025 PACESetter Innovative Deal of the Year ($50M+) by PACENation. Chapman describes the development as including experiential retail, food and beverage destinations and interactive attractions, and says that by replacing mezzanine capital with long-term C-PACE financing, the structure reduced the cost of capital. That is deal counsel describing its client’s deal. Bayview PACE’s Selander told ICSC that the idea, from when PACE was first rolled out, that it could replace mezzanine and sit above the senior loan was “a big misunderstanding” and “not accurate”; in his words, C-PACE “sits after property tax and before the senior loan.”

The former CNN Center, Atlanta: C-PACE in a retail-led repositioning

Commercial Observer reported on 26 June 2026 that a joint venture of CP Group and Rialto Capital Management secured a $56.4 million loan for the repositioning of the CTR building, previously known as CNN Center, in downtown Atlanta. Peachtree Group originated the 30-year C-PACE debt to support the transformation of the 1976-built, 1.2 million-square-foot property into a mixed-use campus and retail district. The plan includes activating 200,000 square feet of retail space in the ground-floor atrium, and a new 24,000-square-foot food hall debuted in spring 2026. The upper floors are slated to eventually feature office, hotel and residential use.

The C-PACE was to fund eligible improvements including HVAC systems, lighting, plumbing infrastructure and LED media displays.

What retail and restaurant buildings have financed

Taking only the deals above that list their measures, C-PACE in retail and mixed-use has paid for:

• HVAC — Nashville and the former CNN Center;
• Lighting, including LED — Nashville and the former CNN Center;
• Building envelope — roof and wall insulation and energy-efficient windows in Nashville;
• Plumbing infrastructure — the former CNN Center;
• Storm resiliency measures — Nashville;
• LED media displays — the former CNN Center.

West Harbor, The Allen and AREA15 were reported without a list of measures. ICSC describes eligible improvements generally as energy and water efficiency, renewable energy and resiliency measures. None of the sources we checked describes restaurant-specific equipment, so we do not say whether a given kitchen item qualifies. That is a question for the state programme’s eligible-measures list and the capital provider.

Tenants: who pays the assessment

Most of these properties are leased, and that changes the economics. Hodgson Russ wrote on 31 July 2024 that a C-PACE assessment can be passed through to tenants under triple-net leases, because tenants pay their share of property taxes and the assessment appears on that tax bill. The same alert warns that some leases explicitly exclude PACE assessments from the definition of taxes or operating expenses, which creates ambiguity and potential conflict, and that tenants may not always be aware they are contributing to the assessment.

For a retail landlord with a mix of NNN, modified-gross and percentage-rent tenants, the lease wording decides who carries the cost. Read every lease before you size the deal. Our guide to C-PACE and NNN lease pass-through works through gross, modified-gross and triple-net leases, base years and the exclusion clauses that block recovery.

When C-PACE does not fit a retail asset

The sources that chart the growth also point to the limits.

• Short-lived deals. Selander said that if your deal does not have a medium to longer lifespan, it is not going to lend itself to C-PACE as well.
• Lender consent. Hill said the final hurdle for PACE has always been whether you can get the lender to consent to it, though she added that for a number of reasons lenders now consent to it. Our guide to lender consent covers what a senior lender asks.
• Leases that exclude the assessment. Hodgson Russ notes that some leases explicitly exclude PACE assessments from the definition of taxes or operating expenses. Check your anchor leases before you assume the assessment is recoverable.

When those points line up against you, the honest answer may be that C-PACE is the wrong tool for that property. If you own a retail or mixed-use property and want a straight answer on whether C-PACE fits, talk to us. We are an advisory and placement service, not a lender, and we will tell you if it does not.