Neighborhood Developer

This is the project that John is doing.

I met John Chong. He is the CEO of DIRA which is the company to proceed Condo project in Carrollton. Until now on, this project is very successful. Already, over 80% of condos were sold out.
It started construction around 2 weeks ago. The biggest group of customer buying condos is asian.

He said that there are many opportunity around Hmart in Carrollton. This area has biggest asian mart and biggest spa&waterpark in Texas. The area could be symbol of asian culture in Texas. This might bring many visitors and customers from outside.

And, according to him, the hardest thing in development is funding and lending. To get good condition of lending, I have better to get some equity investors, or land provider.

To lower the construction cost, it is also very important to increase profitability. That is the reason why he always involved in construction by himself,  not as only developer.

Carrollton City's Tax Incentive

I emailed Peter J. Braster in Carrollton City hall. He is a senior manager in Transit-oriented development. I asked about some benefit when I would develop a street mall in Carrollton. 

He emailed back to me like this. 

The City of Carrollton has limited options to incentivize/ support development.  First the project must have a commercial use.  A mall would qualify.  Tax abatements would be the only available option for the City since we are a member of DART and our 4a and 4b sales tax money goes to DART, we can’t use incentives like Frsico does.  For our incentive policy look one our website here:  City of Carrollton Incentives  You can figure out what kind of rebate a mall project would get based on the table.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

With Peter's help, I could find the incentive policy in Carrollton city. 

This is the link of the website which has the policy.

http://carrolltontxdevelopment.com/index.aspx?page=1373

This is the tex reduction rule in Carrollton city.

And, I could get some PPT resource about the Reiford Project. 

Fundng Advice

I contact Ted Kim, vice president of Chase Bank. He is very high rank lending officer in Chase. Actually, he is not side of Real Estate lending. I begged pardon some advice based on his experience and knowledge.  

He advices me if this project could show reliability and profitability. The real estate part in Chase could invest in this project. 

Current preferable LTV of Chase is 80%. And, interest rate is around 6.5% on this kind of project.

But, if the lending period is just 10years, I might be around 3.54% with the condition that interest rates change every 5 years. 

Idea for construction-fabric roofing

I met Josep Kim who is the president of Nissi Group to get some advice about my development project. He is developing and constructing a water park in Dallas. He said that covering with fabric roof on street in Texas is great idea. There is no such  unique street mall in Texas ever. It could reduce risk in summer that shopping people or visitor disappear.

And, he recommended roof materials. That is the Tensile membrane. It is very popular fabric roof type. And, also PTFE roofing. PTFE was used to some sports stadium in Korea for 2002 World Cup. 

Tensile membrane

PTEF roof in soccer stadium in Korea

The problem is cost. But, it is not that expensive. According to my research, the fabric costs $50 per square meter.

REAE5323_My Project

I want to develop a street mall in Carrollton. The city has the development plan known as Reiford project. They has huge development plan which include hotel, residence, office and street mall.  I'd like to adopt some feature on this project which has never been to Texas. It is perfectly fit to  hot weather in Dallas. I will develop a street mall that has a fabric roof on the street. It can make vistors avoid sun light and rain, even hail.

Reiford project in Carrollton city

This is the example of street mall has a fabric roof on street. This is the western dorm shopping district in Korea.

The western dorm in Korea