Co-owner and CEO of Foutch Brothers, LLC, a development company behind the the proposed Tire Town project, a historic renovation project that would convert the old Tire Town campus in Leavenworth into a variety of apartments, long-term stay corporate suites, office and training facilities, banquet space, and tenant amenity space.
What is the current status of the Tire Town project?
While we have been waiting for the economy to recover and private lending to resume, we have been chasing a few anchor tenants for the property, and exploring if a TIF bond that would be advantageous vs the normal NRA allowance for downtown/historic structures.
Unfortunately, none have met with a positive answer to date, but we keep working all avenues possible to get it back on line.
Has the economy been a problem in getting this project started?
The turn in the economy and the collapse of the historic tax credits put the project into its current "hold" position from the work we had already been doing. Our "stop work status" has nothing to do with our company, the city or the project; it is all financially driven by the economy. Banks and investors were pulling out of deals last year that they had formally signed and closed; we were close to getting Tire Town financed, but then the economic turmoil started and we never got a chance to get the loan closed.
What kind of hurdles do you face to getting the project completed?
Every day the buildings sit empty they deteriorate more and the public gets more upset with me and the city for not doing anything. We are doing everything possible in the current state of the economy and investor reactions to speculative real estate.
The Kansas State Historic Tax credits have been repaired, but investors are slow to come back into the process. The Federal Tax credit pricing is also slow to rebound to 2007 levels, so we are re-working our numbers to meet current economic and rental levels so as to get underwritten by a bank.
We have already made substantial structural and site changes to the project, but it will still take another 2 years more. The dynamics of renters, military contractors and other city space users is changing rapidly, so we have multiple design scenarios to help adapt the old building to a new user(s).
What kind of economic impact will this have on our community once completed?
During the 2 years of construction it should keep about 30 to 40+ construction workers employed, plus a dozen full-time employees when we are finished. It should also bring/keep 200 residential units and various office tenants utilizing downtown services. But if you also add up the true amount of debris if the buildings were demolished, plus all the farmland, infrastructure and new lumber to build 200 new homes out in the suburbs, we are actually saving the lifecycle economy millions of dollars in negative opportunity costs.
