The Forge Cools Off
As deadlines pass, hammering out the details and finances of the proposed entertainment district gets increasingly awkward.
At the March 28 meeting of the BJCC board, Performa Entertainment Real Estate CEO John Elkington updated the board on efforts to secure financing for The Forge, the proposed downtown entertainment project. BJCC executive director Jack Fields had reported at the February board meeting that financing would be secured by March, a deadline that Performa has now missed. Though behind schedule, an upbeat Elkington told board members via teleconference from Memphis: “We are in the final stages of our financing. We met last week with Compass Bank in Birmingham, [Elkington stated that he was particularly pleased that Compass was at the table as they had shown little interest earlier.] and there are six other lenders that we have met with. We are putting together for each of them different requests, but primarily they are requesting financials on all the people involved and our equity partner. All those are going to be sent out Monday of next week to the various lenders. . . . There are three things that we’re beginning to get from all our lenders: number one, they want us to increase our equity. And our equity now is really 60 percent loan to value. So we’re putting in somewhere in the area of $7.5 to $8 million of equity in this project to get the loan to value to 60 percent. Number two, they want to make sure that in the first three or four years there’s sufficient capital to make sure that everything is worthwhile . . . The third thing is, we have given everyone copies of all the leases and letters of intent, and all the guarantees.”
Elkington added that The Forge proposal is currently 73 percent pre-leased and Performa is negotiating with “American Idol” star Taylor Hicks to “play a little bit larger role in the development, to spend some time actually doing some commercials, and doing some other things to talk about the project nationally.” A sponsorship agreement has been signed with Buffalo Rock, and Elkington predicts that the original sponsorship goal will be exceeded. “But we really don’t want to talk about it until we actually sign,” he said. “We have exchanged documents with several people who we’ve had numerous meetings with. And one is very exciting and I think will help tremendously.” &