UPDATED AUGUST 19, 2010
We are now officially commercial land owners of almost 2 acres of land to build our new facility! The closing went smoothly this past Friday and we expect to start construction one week from Monday. It’s been about a 2 year journey from the time we first thought about moving to a bigger space to this moment and we’re just incredibly excited to begin the next phase of Biscardi Creative Media.
Plans call for 8 edit suites, 1 Color Enhancement / 5.1 Surround Mix suite, VO booth, oversized kitchen / game room, large conference room, 1400 sq. ft. open space that could be used for an insert stage, backyard deck with grill and relaxation area, and about an acre of untouched land. The entire facility backs up to the woods with nothing to hear but the birds chirping in the trees. About 1 mile away is Lake Lanier Islands Resort with great golfing, boating and a huge water park. I will be updating this blog weekly, sometimes daily as the building goes from a patch of land to our new home.
Tremendous thanks has to go to a wonderful group of folks who helped us find the land and get to closing.
Gary Allen – Prudential Real Estate. 770 633 7033 Just one of the nicest and best real estate agents I’ve ever worked with. If you have any interest in purchasing or leasing commercial real estate in the Atlanta area, you really owe it to yourself to call Gary.
Kristy Hunter – SunTrust Bank, Suwanee branch. We’ve been working directly with Kristy for a few years now and she really helped us through the entire loan process. In fact she warned me more than once that it’s a lot easier to just buy a building than to start from scratch. She was right, but in the end, she really worked hard to get this loan done and we’re lucky to be working with her. (UPDATED BELOW WITH NEW LOAN INFORMATION)
Joe McCabe – McCabe Construction. 404 314 0028 All I can say about Joe is I’ve known him over 10 years now and he is without a doubt the best, most honest contractor you will ever meet. Home construction, renovation, commercial construction and all around nice guy, I am so excited to have Joe overseeing this new facility for us.
Metal Building Associates – Sugar Hill, GA. These guys will be putting up the steel frame building and have been so accomodating throughout the entire design and planning stage. Their work is all over the Atlanta area, they do great, clean buildings and the price is more than fair. Looking forward to see the “erector set” go up in the next few weeks.
Jayne Olderman & Art McGovern for their tremendous support of both our company and us personally as we have moved along this sometimes incredibly stressful process of becoming land owners. They always knew just the right things to say and the right advice to give. Maybe Jayne can write a song about it……
More soon!
August 19, 2010 update.
Turns out we’re NOT so lucky to have done this entire process with SunTrust. They have completely screwed up the loan. It started with the Lawyer not performing the closing as expected and it’s been explained to us that there was a “misunderstanding” between all of us. The “misunderstanding” is that SunTrust never gave us our paperwork in advance so we could review the closing documents and the Lawyer made a mistake at the closing.
First we were told we owed a very substantial 5 figure amount of money towards the closing. Then they cut that in half, still a high dollar 5 figure amount. After three weeks of back and forth they “graciously” cut a bunch of fees out of the closing costs dropping the amount “we owe” to 4 figures. What we simply cannot understand through all of this is why we are even being asked to pay anything. The Lawyer and SunTrust made the mistake, now we’re being asked to pay for it.
Over the course of the three weeks we’ve been given multiple explanations as to the reasons why and where the money is supposed to go. None of the explanations make any sense, nor do they match. Now today we got the first draw request sort of kind of squared away and not surprisingly, we’re now left with a shortfall for the entire loan. I.E. anything above that amount we have to pay out of pocket.
We’ve purchased three homes personally, have had quite a few business loans and lines of credit and have never, EVER seen this level of failure from a bank. Needless to say we are looking elsewhere for our banking needs.
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