C-PACE stands alone in $172.5 million Shoma Bay stack

Miami developer Shoma Group has closed a $172.5 million Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy loan from Nuveen Green Capital for its 24-story Shoma Bay condominium project in North Bay Village, a construction financing that leaves C-PACE as the only debt in the stack, according to a person familiar with the transaction. Commercial Observer first reported the transaction on the tower at 1850 John F. Kennedy Causeway, about 10 miles northeast of Downtown Miami, which will hold 333 condo units and retail space anchored by a 36,000-square-foot Publix, plus a rooftop pool deck, a wellness spa, a two-story fitness center, a padel court and coworking spaces. Newmark negotiated the debt, with Anthony Orso, Clifford Welden, Daniel Matz and Henry Stimler on the assignment.

Nuveen Green Capital's Ryan Doyle, senior director of originations, said in a statement that the loan offers further evidence of C-PACE's power to provide accretive financing for large-scale assets, and that the firm served as the sole capital provider on the development, which ranks among the five largest C-PACE-financed projects in Florida.

A source familiar with the transaction told Commercial Observer that no other debt provider exists in the capital stack — just the C-PACE loan, condo sales deposits and equity. Commercial Observer said Shoma Group did not immediately return a request for comment. Doyle originated the loan internally with Christopher Lawton, head of originations, Brendan Moore, director, and Tyler Amano, associate director.

A conventional condo construction job would put a bank in the senior spot, a mezzanine lender one level down and equity at the top; Shoma Bay's debt is one C-PACE instrument, with buyer deposits and equity layered beneath it. That is the purest version of the C-PACE pitch: the assessment carries the construction, the equity takes the development risk, and the sales deposits fund the ride.

The product's trajectory has been moving this way. In Boston, Winthrop Center's twin financings put $281 million in C-PACE on the condo units and $575 million in securitized debt on the offices, splitting an $856 million stack across a 20-year and a five-year term. The Boston deal still had a pooled debt layer; Shoma Bay drops that layer and leaves C-PACE as the only lender.

Nuveen Green Capital's calendar points the same way. PWD's records show a $1 billion fund launch on Aug. 27 and an $856 million deal on Aug. 26, days before Shoma Bay closed. Those are the numbers behind Doyle's 'sole capital provider' line: the firm is underwriting assessments as a core construction product, not arranging a green retrofit layer on a bank deal.

The risk shifts with the structure. When C-PACE sits behind a bank construction loan, the bank's credit committee is the gatekeeper on the project's sales assumptions and contractor; with no bank in the stack, the C-PACE lender is underwriting the whole development — sales velocity, construction cost, delivery date. The structure is efficient and concentrated, and Shoma Bay's 333 units are the collateral for that judgment.

The refinancing wall is being financed rather than foreclosed; patient capital is repricing risk without forcing sales. Shoma Bay is the construction-side version of that trade. C-PACE is permanent capital repaid through a property assessment, and in North Bay Village it is the only debt in a ground-up condo deal — so the credit question shifts from whether C-PACE can supplement a bank to whether the assessment alone can carry a project to completion.

Newmark's Orso called Shoma Bay exceptional and said the project reflects North Bay Village's evolution into one of South Florida's most dynamic waterfront communities. Doyle's phrase — 'sole capital provider' — now has to survive contact with a construction schedule and a sales plan.