Case Studies
Wooster Park Office Condos
Construction start: February 2007
Occupancy: September 2007
Customer Overview: Ernst & Rabe is an accounting firm that services small to midsize businesses in the greater Cincinnati area. Bill Ernst was looking to expand the business and had out grown the Hyde Park office on Madison Road.
Situation: In 2006 Bill approached Unit Building Services to investigate a building a 20,000 square foot office building on a site available near Lunken Airport on Wooster Road. The plan was that Ernst & Rabe would occupy 5,000 square feet and they would speculatively lease the remaining space.
Ultimately they opted not to proceed with a 20,000 square foot, 2 story building as risk of taking on the role of developer was outside their comfort zone. Accordingly, they continued looking for more manageable buildings and sites.
Solution: Unit Building Services teamed up with the existing Wooster Pike land owner with a plan to develop office condos. The structure of the development deal allowed the land owner to put forth his property as collateral into the new development. Unit Building Services provided construction and development services. Unit and the land owner became 50/50 partners. After the construction loan, value of the land and development fee was paid, profits were split 50/50. The development consists of 3 twelve unit buildings with the first phase consisting of 24 units. We approached Ernst & Rabe with the newly proposed development plans. They liked what they saw and committed to 6 of the units.
This satisfied our pre-sale requirements and we were off and running. We completed the structures and pre-sales in October of 2007.
Outcome: This project demonstrates how creative thinking can satisfy a client’s needs as well as kick off a nicely designed development... a win-win-win solution!