The financing picture
Sustainability 1st is structured as a Colorado single-owner specialty contractor pursuing a layered capital stack for our Costilla County flagship site: SBA 7(a), USDA REAP guaranteed lending, Colorado C-PACE, and the Colorado Rural Jump-Start program. We're not asking any one source to carry the whole project — each piece is sized to what it's actually suited for, from construction financing to long-term non-recourse debt secured against the property.
We're in the pre-revenue planning and fundraising phase, with a bank-submission-ready business plan built around real, sourced numbers rather than industry averages — including a wind capacity factor recalibrated against twelve years of National Weather Service station data for the site itself, not an optimistic regional estimate. Groundbreaking on the flagship site is targeted for spring 2027.
Total capital need for the flagship build is distributed across a mix of loans, grants, and future partnership commitments rather than resting on any single source. That structure is deliberate: SBA and USDA-backed debt, C-PACE financing, and grant programs like USDA REAP each carry their own terms and their own risk profile, and spreading the ask across them means no single funder is holding the whole project.
Growth past the flagship runs through franchising, not direct expansion. Future sites are structured as independent energy co-ops, owned and operated by franchisees, with Sustainability 1st providing the design, build, and technical assistance behind each one. Franchise opportunities — coming soon, targeted for 2029 — will open once the flagship site is built and running. If you're evaluating this as a franchise or partnership opportunity rather than a lending relationship, reach out and we'll keep you posted as that timeline firms up.
What we can share on request
- Full business plan and financial model
- Project milestones (EBITDA, DSCR, and cash-flow timelines)
- Site data and resource assessments
- Entity structure and current funding-source status