The message here is not to get in a hurry because these things have a life of their own and all the pushing, shoving, screamin and hollerin aint gonna change it. SO RELAX...(I'm still learning that!)

Something I failed to cover in the original installment is how important it is to have a good working relationship with your bank.The day I moved here. I purposely sought out the bank president...introduced myself told him who we were and where we were headed (financially)He never forgot that and after 15 years of banking with the same bank there was a total of 2 hours of negotiations to let them know what we needed and when. There literally was no fear of being turned down.
Along the way we have payed of many many small loans with the bank and our credit wasn't even challenged.This will work for anyone willing to take the time to make that affiliation.

There has been some non productive energy involved over the past year...I won't bore you with the details but here is some of what you might expect.

After spending endless hours negotiating with the adjoining two land owners for a sewer easment thru their property (to no avail). We were forced to approach the city with a solution that envolved us using city easments to reach it.(Now you understand the time frame)At this point it became apparent to me there was no point in me trying to fight this two headed dragon and we hired and engineer to work it all out. Now fortunately I had a client that recommended we use the ex city engineer...BEST DECISION "I" EVER MADE.

We were aware they(city) were replacing the sewer we wanted to hook up to and tried to negotiate the hook up while they had it open (to no avail, common sense has never been a municipal trait)at any rate our new engineer negotiated a hook up that includes Our paying for and building a manhole structure, laying an 8" line (code)replacing the neighbors driveway (he's happy about that)ending at a "lamphole" cleanout and stopping there til the building permit can be obtained.

Next week they do all the work and we got a bargain at only $4,940. + engineering negotiations and drawings (not seen the final bill but expect it to be around $750. to $1000.) more on that later.

If we get the manhole in on time the city will pay for the pavement over it (because they haven't finished their repair yet...if not that will be an additional charge.

We have narrowed it down to 2 contractors and will have to decide in the next couuple of weeks. We are currently gathering bids for all the subs (couldn't find a turn key developer with the right bid) The building will be a 3000 square foot mettel structure and we will occupy 2000 square feet and lease out the other 1000 to help pay the mortgage (about half) we wanted 4000 square feet with two lease propertiess (would have payed the whole mortgage) but with setbacks the city wouldn't allow that much.(crap)

Next installment I'll fill you in on locating contractors (not as easy as you might think).

Catch me at a meet and I'll share some of the real horror stories we incountered over the past year (half of you wouldn't read it all if I did it here the other half wouldn't believe it).

Did you notice adding the sewer cost back onto the cost of the land brought it back up to $35,000.(Our original offer...I love it when things work out)

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Monte Jumper
SIGNLanguage/Norman.Okla.

[This message has been edited by Monte Jumper (edited August 16, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Monte Jumper (edited August 16, 2001).]

Good luck and we'll talk to you soon.

There has not been a set of instructions for us to follow so a lot of it has been done by shooting from the hip..a costly adventure at best...fortunately we ran into the right help at the right time. If you know any contractors, look to them for advice...they can save you a lot of "false starts"..we had a few ourselves.

True engineers and architects cost money, but what they save you is even more important. One warning however... don't take their word for anything...you are paying their salary and are entitled to ask questions.

Our architect is young and is being mentored by the engineer...without his checking with us or the engineer we nearly had to do a bunch of things that cost a LOT of money. He ASSUMED because we were a sign shop we had a LOT of flammable goods. The city then ASSUMED we were building a 3000 sq. ft. warehouse full of paint and thinners and we nearly had to have all kinds of "fire walls" sprinkler systems and alarms,all of which would have been ridiculous. We had to calm him down a bit and told him to let the city know this is an "Investment property" ( for lease after built). Not knowing what will be in there they were much more lienient and all that "scary" stuff disapeared.What the heck if we can't lease it we'll move in ourselves...wow what a coincidence.

More to come...waiting to see how the sewer project goes. If we get our "stuff" together we can be under construction by late September and moved in before Christmas.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Roger

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Roger Bailey
Rapid Tac Incorporated
Waikoloa, Hawaii

We're watchin em' like a hawk! (A hungry hawk).