Thinking Clean by Going Green
This is our second hotel project with the owner Deven Patel. His first was for a Comfort Suites hotel in Omaha at 2500 S 192nd Ave. That hotel was a new construction and is nearing completion. Patel also owns a Holiday Inn Express in O’Neill and has partial ownership in a Super 8 in Iowa. Their recent loan in 2011 helped him complete 74 rooms, a meeting space, indoor pool and fitness center.
Deven has been in the hotel industry since 2001 and demonstrates a strong pride of ownership. He is constantly looking for was to improve customer service and increase the efficiency of his hotels.
“The SBA’s green energy goal is another way we can help small business owners achieve their goals. It allows business owners to complete energy improvements that can lead to significant savings for many years to come.”
The loan is also significant in that it is the first loan approved under special energy public policy goals. To qualify Deven needed to provide an energy audit showing that his improvements to the existing property would reduce annual energy use by 10%. He will be replacing the current light fixtures which are compact fluorescent with LED lamps. Additional energy savings will come from replacing existing thermostats with the latest, programmable thermostats as well as adding a pool cover for times at night when the pool is closed. By doing a loan under the energy public policy goals, borrowers are no longer bound by the job creation requirement of 1 job for every $65,000 of NEDCO’s loan amount. The project limit is increased to $5.5 million, and there is no limit on the number of these projects that they can qualify for. Typically borrowers are capped at $5 million among all projects they do, whereas, green energy projects have their own separate $5.5 million limits.