Property transaction a trilogy of sorts

Sale required months of negotiations

Sunday, May 13, 2007

By JOHN R. PULLIAM

The Register-Mail

GALESBURG - It's not exactly "The Lord of the Rings," but Ed Lindsay sees the move of Knox Glass from a hard-to-find street in Hawthorne Centre to busy Henderson Street as a trilogy.

Unlike the journey of Frodo and company, Lindsay's journey began in September 2003 when he and Aaron Tessier bought Knox Glass.

"We had been open for about six months," Lindsay said. "It was crazy busy. We couldn't keep up, but there was one problem, people couldn't find us."

Part I

The trilogy began when Lindsay was having lunch with his son at Taco Bell, 858 N. Henderson St. Lindsay was talking with his son about the problem when his son said, "'Buy that across the street, Dad.' "

Now, Lindsay's journey may not have been as tough as the Fellowship of the Ring's perilous trip through Middle-Earth, but his experience is illustrative of the problems that can arise both for a small businessman and efforts to buy vacant gas stations.

"It was the old Clark station," Lindsay said, long deserted at 831 N. Henderson St.

Lindsay called a broker and asked if there were EPA issues. Not surprisingly, he learned there were.

The idea of having a showroom on Henderson Street continued to haunt Lindsay, like the ring in the J.R.R. Tolkien classic. Four months later, he called the broker again. Still no prospective buyers, but the EPA issues were not yet remediated. Lindsay said he made what he told the broker was a one-time offer "and it was a ridiculously low price."

About two weeks later, Lindsay learned he might have a deal if he could get a bank to invest some money, so his trek began. According to Lindsay, he had the seller down to about one-third what the property was worth, $20,000 of his own money to invest and high hopes.

"Basically I needed them to come up with the price of a car for three properties on Henderson Street," Lindsay said.

The bank rejected his loan application, as did a second bank.

"I went to a third bank - same story," he said. "My financials were great. Three months went by and I didn't hear anything."

Lindsay finally called the seller and said he wanted to buy the property directly through him. The seller wanted a three-year note, half down. Lindsay offered one-third down.

Nine months had passed since the Sunday dinner at Taco Bell with his son.

"That was like the end of part I," Lindsay said.

Parts II and III

Lindsay, now feeling some new hope, got a general contractor and, unlike the loan application he turned in before, "this time we turned in an 80-page business plan. ... I went to the bank and the general contractor and gave them all the information. The bank never got back to us and the general contractor would never give us numbers."

On March 19, still with no bank to finance the new building, Lindsay and Tessier received a letter from the EPA that the property was cleared of contamination.

Now, part III," Lindsay said with a grin. "We got another bank, (First Midwest Bank) which is just loving the package."

The also have a general contractor, who they meet with once a week. By the end of summer, the "ring," which could be seen as a combination of finding financing, a general contractor and learning the property was cleared, should finally no longer be around Lindsay's neck and the new, 5,000-square-foot Knox Glass showroom should be standing across the street from where the journey began.