Not long after the groundbreaking on July 10, the Maple Leaf Management Group voted to allow co-president Barry Herring to look for another $200,000 loan.
That money would allow wooden beams made by local company The Beamery to be used in the Maple Leaf’s lobby.
When construction bids came in over budget, $743,167 in cuts were made to the project. The biggest savings was taking some beams out of the lobby, for a reduction of $173,466. Other changes included not paving the parking lot right away, at a savings of $273,601.
Earlier this summer, Herring had mentioned that he wanted to look for a loan, grants and/or donations. “The beams are a structural component of the lobby, which means we don’t have time (to wait on them), like with the parking lot. We can do the parking lot 10 or 15 years from now, or we can do it with a grant or whatever, but The Beamery, it’s local and I really feel strongly that we need them,” he said.
In order to have The Beamery be a part of the project, the group voted to pay the company $18,500 so they can start engineering drawings for the lobby beams and construction can stay on schedule. Herring said he was told that with one phone call after securing the rest of the financing, The Beamery would begin building.
“We’ll be taking an $18,500 risk that if we don’t hire the Beamery that we’ll get nothing for it, but it keeps The Beamery in play so if we do get the additional financing, it’s ready to go. It’s like a two-edged sword,” Herring said.
He said the beams planned to go in the lobby now are not bad, but they are “not Brown County.”
“Everything we wanted about this project, we wanted it to say Brown County,” Herring said.
Any loan that the management group wants to take out would have to be approved by the Brown County Commissioners and the Brown County Council.
With the Maple Leaf Management Group’s board’s approval, Herring will speak to potential lenders. He said taking out a $200,000 loan and repaying it over 30 years would cost an additional $10,000 to $12,000 a year.
Herring said the county may pay a lender a fee of between $6,000 and $8,000, which the bank can keep if a loan is not needed. “It’s a nice way of having the comfort of knowing the money is there if we need it, but also knowing we don’t have to take it and pay interest the interest on it if we don’t need that,” he said.
Maple Leaf Management Group co-president Kevin Ault said there could be money left over from the project once it’s completed to fund the beams.
Herring said the additional $200,000 loan would have the same contingencies as the initial $12.5 million loan from the State Bank of Lizton: “No property tax or income tax backup,” Herring said.
“In essence, I want to clone that loan because it was done so well. We didn’t have to give any of the typical things that a bond would (require) to give the county residents comfort that we can’t hit their tax bills.”
County commissioner Diana Biddle, who sits on the management group, said that naming rights also should be considered when thinking about paying for the beams.
“We’re hoping we don’t have to borrow anything at all,” she said. For instance, in the History Center, certain rooms are named after individuals.
“When we broke ground for the (Brown County) History Center, we did not have any naming rights secured at that point. … Within six or seven months, we had almost $500,000, close to a million dollars in naming rights that were secured into that building,” she said.
Biddle said Maple Leaf Building Corporation President Robyn Bowman had already made contacts about naming rights. “I think it’s there, it will be there, but it usually doesn’t come until much closer to the end,” she said. “I am not talking Lucas Oil Stadium, but if Lucas wants to come in and sponsor the beer garden, it could be the Lucas Family Garden. I’m not talking renaming the (entire) facility.”
Herring said the additional money would need to be secured in the next few weeks to keep up with the construction schedule.
Resident Sherrie Mitchell asked the group if the innkeepers tax could be used as loan collateral again, since it is already pledged as the backup revenue source for the initial $12.5 million loan.
Herring said he spoke with the State Bank of Lizton, but he did not have anything documented from them yet. “Whoever, if anyone, wants a part of this $200,000, they are going to get the innkeepers tax after the State Bank of Lizton,” Herring said.
Mitchell asked if the State Bank of Lizton would allow them to borrow the additional $200,000 based on the Maple Leaf revenue, which is pledged already. Herring said he did think that would be allowed.
He said that if the loan is not approved, then the management group would not have to spend the $6,000 to $8,000 lender fee.
Mitchell asked if it would be possible to shorten the term of the loan from 30 years.
“I prefer it to be to dovetail with the existing loan with the State Bank of Lizton. In having to go out for 30 years, it gets us down to that $10,000-a-year point. If we do a shorter term, that payment is going to go up,” Herring said.
But he said he would make sure the loan would be pre-payable, meaning the county could pay it off sooner than 30 years if it had the funds to do so.
