Challenge

The Sheet Metal Workers Chapter 49 located in Albuquerque, New Mexico received the designation as the new Homeland Security Training Unit for all the Sheet Metal Worker Chapters in the United States. A significant reason for this designation was being located in the same city as Sandia National Laboratories, a major government institution involved in developing technologies for Homeland Defense.

The Sheet Metal Workers Chapter 49 owned and occupied a facility in Albuquerque that they had outgrown and would not accommodate this new training assignment. Therefore they had a real estate requirement to acquire a larger location near Sandia National Labs, the Albuquerque International Airport and within walking distance of hotels and restaurants to accommodate individuals that would fly in as trainees in the Homeland Training Unit. Other challenges included that a substantial portion of the funds they had available for the acquisition of their new facility was the equity in their existing building and their budget would not allow for new construction.

Solutions

The solution was a two part effort; (1) defining the client’s needs while identifying properties that would meet the requirement, and (2) selling the existing facility.

In defining the client’s needs, Tom conducted interviews utilizing our “facility requirement program” from which we were able to clearly define the client’s requirements. Based upon the results of this survey, we were able to determine that there were no existing buildings being actively marketed for sale that met the requirement, but we were able to identify four (4) existing buildings that would accommodate the client’s needs. We then worked with our client to rank these facilities from the most to the least desirable. At this point we approached each building owner to determine if they would consider selling their property. We were fortunate that the owner of the 1st choice facility was interested in selling and we were able to enter into a purchase agreement in less than one (1) month from the commencement of the process.

As stated previously, another challenge was that a substantial portion of the funds our client had available for the acquisition of the new facility was to be from the equity in their existing building. Although we had initiated a very aggressive marketing program to sell their existing building, we felt that it was unlikely we would be able to identify a buyer, enter into a purchase contract and complete the sale of their current building to a new buyer prior to the expiration of the sixty (60) day diligence period for the purchase of the new building. We then approached and were successful in getting the seller of the new facility to agree to provide a 2nd position seller financing in the amount of our client’s equity in their existing building, until such time as we were able to sell their current facility. This allowed all parties to proceed with the purchase of the new facility.

Results

We were successful in identifying a buyer for their old facility and arranged a closing that occurred the same week as their move to the new facility.