Local developers say they can’t get local funding for their projects despite governmental talk about stimulating the economy.
As a result, potential projects have stalled or are not moving forward.
“I’ve been tenacious enough to keep going until I find somebody. I’ve gotten financing as far away as Chicago and out of Manhattan,” said Alan Zirkelbach, owner of Zirkelbach Construction and a Palmetto city councilman. “The reality is, local banks, I don’t care what they tell you, they’re not lending to developers and they’re not lending to anything that has even a whiff of new construction. I’ve had to go after financing just like going after a new client.”
Monthly commercial building permits in Manatee County peaked at 47 in August 2007, according to county records. Last month, there were only 22 commercial building permits filed. The total number of commercial building permits issued for 2008 was 17.4 percent lower than the number of those issued in 2007.
John Barnott, director of the Manatee County Building Department, said several projects have had to be put on hold because of lack of funding.
One of them was a new location for Sarasota’s Golden Apple Dinner Theatre in the San Marco Plaza in Lakewood Ranch, Barnott said.
“His (the developer’s) permit’s ready to go. Everything’s ready to go,” Barnott said. “He’s just having a difficult time finding construction financing.”
Barnott has introduced the developer to local bankers in hopes of seeing the project come to fruition.
“I hope we don’t lose that project,” he said. “I’m very fearful about that.”
Bruce Page, Florida president for Cadence Bank, said his bank is focused on lending only to its good, existing clients.
“We’re not actively looking for new business that has not banked with us in the past,” Page said. “We would consider it (a loan) for an existing client of ours for an owner-occupied rehab, or even if it was new. If it was someone who hasn’t banked with us, we’d have to take a pass on it. And if it’s not owner-occupied, I’m not sure there’s much going on there in any case from a commercial development standpoint.”
Between 2007 and now, local loans to construction and construction-related businesses guaranteed by the Small Business Administration have dropped dramatically — another sign that the appetite for lending has dwindled.
In 2007, 16 businesses in Manatee County received loans totaling $629,500, according to the SBA. So far this year, only one business has received an SBA-guaranteed loan, totaling $180,000.
“We have clearly just had an overall drop in lending activity, period,” said Althea Harris, an SBA spokeswoman. “Our program is predicated on the lenders actually making loans. So we can’t guarantee what they can’t lend.”
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