Concerts on the Square…A Few Rules

From the Capitol Police department are the following reminders:

STATE CAPITOL POLICIES:

• Blankets placed before 3 p.m. will be removed.

• Do not dump alcohol on the lawn; it kills the grass.

• No rocks, bricks, stakes or tarps on the Capitol lawn.

• Use only low height chairs on the lawn, with (6 inch) tubular, “U”-shaped legs.

• No tables with standard legs.

• No animals.

BE RESPECTFUL OF YOUR NEIGHBORS:

• Please refrain from talking during the concert.

• Limit smoking and burning of incense and citronella candles.

Thank you for your cooperation,

and enjoy the concert!

You Know the Ecomony is Bad when….

I had lunch with a guy in Waukesha this past Thursday and he relayed a story that not only had me laughing so hard I almost fell out of my chair, but it also brought home a sad commentary on the state of things for many people.

The story went like this:

My friend, Sam (changed to protect the innocent) has a young family, runs a very fast paced business so occasionally needs to “escape” somewhere for peace and quiet.  He’s discovered one of his most enjoyable “escapes” is the public library.  On this night, that’s what he chose to do.  During his time there, “duty called” and as he told the story he grabbed some reading material because it would take a while. 

He “finished the job” and just as he was about to finish the “paperwork” he realized none existed.  That’s right, the stall he was in had no toilet paper.  Being the industrious guy that he is he thought about what he should do.  He’d used this facility before and remembered that there wasn’t even a paper towel dispenser in this bath, just a fan dryer.  The reading material he brought with him wasn’t an option either.  So guess what, he decided to “phone a friend”.  He called one of his buddies, asked him not to laugh if he told him of his dilemma.  He promised he wouldn’t but couldn’t help it when he described his predicament.  Anyway, he asked his buddy to look up the phone number for the front desk at the library.  He gave him the number and he proceeded to call the library front desk to request someone bring a roll of TP to him in the bath.

He made the call, shortly thereafter, Ron the buidling engineer arrived with the needed paper and handed it to him under the stall.  Ron then asked that Sam return the roll to the front desk when he finished with it.  Sam then asked why he couldn’t just leave it there for the next poor soul and was told this sad story.

Over the past few weeks there’s been a rash of burglaries at the public library involving massive amounts of toilet paper being stolen.  In fact, they have now even put locks on the dispenser and still the thieves come in and pull all of the paper off of the rolls and walk out with it.   Ron shared with Sam that over 40 rolls had been stolen that week alone.

Man, times must really be tough when TP is now on the most stolen list.

Metropolitan Place Phase II Hits Foreclosure Filings

Another victim of the real estate bubble?

Not enough people want to live in downtown Madison?

Development that was underfunded?

Misunderstanding between the developer and his bankers?

YOU DECIDE.

 Below are the local press articles regarding the recent foreclosure filings against the developer of Metropolitan Place Phase II and his lending/funding sources.  Since word of this hit the media yesterday there has been a lot of speculation as to the cause of this foreclosure action.  Time will tell what truly happened.

I do know a few things:

1)  Development of a large residential condo tower is definitely different than developing a group of 4-8 unit buildings on the fringes of a city.  What I mean by this is on the fringe developments, the developer typically pre-sells 50% of the building before the lender will allow construction to start.  This lessens the risk of the market corrections, interest rate jumps etc…  In Metropolitan Place Phase II’s case, they had to build all 164 units at the same time with the hope that market conditions didn’t affect them too much in order to keep the lender happy.

2.  The market did shift.  The number of units available downtown increased tremendously and unfortunately pricing couldn’t be adjusted to meet the change in demand.

3.  A project with the size and scope of Metropolitan Place is enormous.  When completed and occupied the number of dwelling units between Phase I and Phase II is at 338 households.  Think about this in terms of single family subdivisons in the ‘burbs.  That large a subdivision would typically take 5-10 years to build out and complete.   This has created a small village on 1/2 of a city block!

4.  Finally, there’s talk of the courts forcing the project into receivership with a court appointed entity taking control of the project and it’s sales.  What might happen in this case is that prices on the remaining units could drop substantially to get them sold and sold quickly.  For those unit owners who have already bought, this is bad news in the short term.  If they needed to sell during this time frame, they’ll more than likely see a loss as they’ll be competing directly with new lower priced units.  Long term, however, they should be OK as once the remaining units are sold the market can take back over and units should sell at fair market rates.

5.  I don’t think it’s time to panic!   In fact the faster the developer can resolve this issue with its lenders the better off everyone will be.  It’s hard to sell real estate under the stigma of foreclosure especially when it’s a condominium development.  That hurts everyone both current owners and potential buyers.  A fast resolution, whatever that outcome may be, it essentially best in the short and long term.

For more insights on this check out the following:

Wisconsin State Journal Cap Times

Channel 3000 Newscast