Shoma Group Taps $172.5M C-PACE as Sole Debt for Shoma Bay

Shoma Group has closed a $172.5 million C-PACE loan from Nuveen Green Capital to build Shoma Bay, a 333-unit condominium tower at 1850 John F. Kennedy Causeway in North Bay Village. Newmark arranged the debt. What makes the deal notable is the structure: the C-PACE loan is the only debt in the capital stack, paired with condo sales deposits and developer equity, with no senior construction lender involved at all.

Why it matters

C-PACE financing typically layers on top of, or alongside, a traditional construction loan to cover energy and resiliency upgrades. Using it as the sole capital source on a 333-unit tower is a different move, and it signals lenders are willing to size C-PACE proceeds large enough to replace bank debt entirely on qualifying projects. “This transaction provides further evidence of the power of C-PACE to provide accretive financing for large-scale assets such as Shoma Bay,” said Ryan Doyle, Nuveen Green Capital’s senior director of originations. For developers in Miami weighing capital structures on their own towers, a 100 percent C-PACE stack avoids the recourse and covenant terms that come with a bank construction loan, though it depends on a project qualifying for the assessment-based financing in the first place.

The numbers

The loan totals $172.5 million, working out to roughly $518,000 per unit across the 333-condo building. Shoma Bay sits on a waterfront site about 10 miles northeast of downtown Miami and includes a 36,000-square-foot Publix, a spa and a padel court among its amenities. Nuveen Green Capital’s origination team included Christopher Lawton, Brendan Moore and Tyler Amano alongside Doyle. Newmark’s team was led by Anthony Orso, who called Shoma Bay “an exceptional project that reflects the continued evolution of North Bay Village into one of South Florida’s most dynamic waterfront communities.”

What’s next

Shoma Group has not disclosed a construction timeline or delivery date tied to this financing. The deal adds to a run of large C-PACE transactions from Nuveen Green Capital in 2026, and developers with entitled Miami-area projects will be watching whether other lenders follow with similarly sized, stand-alone C-PACE stacks rather than layering the tool on top of conventional debt.