Economic development leaders across Texas share a common set of goals: retain existing businesses, create jobs, and attract new investment. For small and mid-sized communities, achieving those goals can be challenging. Limited staff capacity, constrained incentive budgets, and fewer financing tools often make it difficult to support local businesses in meaningful ways.

TX-PACE offers a powerful, underutilized solution.

By unlocking long-term, private capital for building improvements, TX-PACE allows communities to advance economic development priorities without using public funds, while strengthening the existing commercial fabric that local economies depend on.

Why Building Investment Matters to Economic Development

In many small and mid-sized communities, economic vitality is closely tied to aging commercial corridors, industrial parks, and legacy small businesses. When buildings become inefficient, costly to operate, or functionally obsolete, the impacts ripple outward:

• Businesses face higher operating costs
• Owners defer maintenance or upgrades
• Tenants struggle to remain competitive
• Communities risk disinvestment rather than growth

TX-PACE addresses these challenges by providing long-term, fixed-rate financing for energy, water, and resiliency improvements that immediately reduce operating costs and improve building functionality.

Supporting Business Retention

Business retention is often the most cost-effective form of economic development—yet it is frequently the hardest to support.

TX-PACE helps retain businesses by enabling property owners to:

• Upgrade HVAC, electrical, roofing, and building envelope systems
• Reduce utility expenses through energy and water efficiency
• Improve comfort and reliability for long-term tenants

Lower operating costs and improved facilities make it easier for local businesses to stay, grow, and reinvest, particularly small and family-owned businesses that may lack access to traditional capital.

Encouraging Job Creation Through Reinvestment

While TX-PACE is not a direct job subsidy, its impact on job creation is tangible.

Construction activity generated by TX-PACE-funded projects supports:

• Local contractors and trades
• Engineers, energy modelers, and technical consultants
• Ongoing building operations and maintenance roles

More importantly, by stabilizing and modernizing commercial properties, TX-PACE helps existing employers remain competitive, preserving jobs and creating the conditions for future hiring.

Attracting Investment Without New Incentive Programs

Small and mid-sized communities often lack the resources to offer large tax abatements or bespoke incentive packages. TX-PACE fills that gap by:

• Attracting private capital into local markets
• Improving the quality and performance of existing building stock
• Enhancing corridor-level competitiveness

Because TX-PACE financing is repaid through a voluntary assessment on the property, it does not require public expenditure, making it an especially attractive tool for communities with limited budgets.

A Corridor-Level Example: West Vickery, Fort Worth

The economic development impact of TX-PACE is perhaps most clearly seen when applied repeatedly over time.

Along Fort Worth’s West Vickery corridor, a single property owner has utilized TX-PACE financing across five separate buildings, reinvesting incrementally to improve functionality, reduce utility costs, and support long-term tenants. These projects, each modest in size individually, collectively demonstrate how TX-PACE can drive sustained corridor revitalization. 

Across the portfolio, TX-PACE has supported:

• Solar energy systems
• HVAC replacements
• Lighting upgrades
• Building envelope and water efficiency improvements

By lowering operating costs and extending the useful life of each building, these investments have helped keep rents competitive, retain long-standing small business tenants, and strengthen the overall commercial corridor.

Why TX-PACE Works Especially Well for Smaller Communities

TX-PACE is uniquely suited to the needs of small and mid-sized communities because it is:

• Repeatable – usable across multiple properties over time
• Scalable – effective for both small and moderate-sized projects
• Private – funded by private capital, not public dollars
• Flexible – adaptable to the specific needs of local building stock

Rather than chasing one large attraction project, communities can use TX-PACE to support steady, incremental reinvestment, often delivering greater long-term economic resilience.

“In many small and mid-sized Texas communities, economic development isn’t about chasing the next big project—it’s about reinvesting in the community members, buildings and businesses that already anchor the local economy. We at Imperial Ridge are very proud to have had the opportunity to provide private capital to several of these projects supporting long-term reinvestment that strengthens communities one property at a time.” Mark Boyer, CEO Imperial Ridge Capital

A Practical Economic Development Strategy

TX-PACE is not a replacement for traditional economic development tools—it is a complement that fills a critical gap.

For communities focused on business retention, job stability, and sustainable growth, TX-PACE provides a practical, proven mechanism to:

• Support existing employers
• Modernize aging commercial assets
• Encourage private reinvestment at the neighborhood level

At Texas PACE Authority, we view TX-PACE as more than a financing program. It is an economic development strategy—one that empowers communities of all sizes to strengthen their local economies, one building at a time.

About Texas PACE Authority (TPA)

Texas PACE Authority (TPA) is the nonprofit administrator for more than 100 local TX-PACE programs across Texas. TPA helps commercial, industrial, and multifamily property owners access long-term, fixed-rate financing for energy, water, and resiliency upgrades that reduce costs, improve building performance, and strengthen communities. Working alongside cities, counties, lenders, and contractors, TPA has facilitated more than $600 million dollars in new private investment statewide.