Registered Plat

At the end of 2010 we had another major accomplishment. Our plat was recorded with the City of Cibolo. Without our property being platted we couldn't proceed with our expansion project. (See previous posts for a better understanding of the plat.) Financing the project is our last significant hurdle. Our bank was hoping to give us the final verdict in December but it has been, you guessed it, delayed. We should be updated this month. There is some concern because the value engineering hasn't reduced our construction cost enough. We've worked hard to get our construction costs down to $2,200,000 but we are about a quarter of a million away from this goal. Also the December delay with our bank was do to some bad news. The minimum amount of equity we are required to have has shifted in this economy. What used to be the standard Loan to Value was 80.20. This economy has shifted the Loan to Value for church. Now the standard Loan to Value for churches is 60/40. Our project, if we could get the construction costs down, of $2,200,000 comes in at 71/29 Loan to Value. We are waiting on a reassessment of our previous appraisal before the bank will make a formal decision for financing our project.

In the meantime another private lending group is evaluating our financial needs. Because of the concern of coming up short on our financing we've begun to look at a redesign that would reduce the project from nearly 16,000 square feet to closer to 13,000 square feet. We aren't putting a lot of effort here because we would prefer to build the original design. But we don't want to give up or have to wait another year before we could build more space. If there is a redesign the three highest priorities are 1. Worship space for 500, 2. Restrooms and 3. Expanded coffee shop.

I hope to have an update for you by the first week in February.=