Revitalization Series Workshop: The Art & Economics of Filling Your Downtown Buildings
Wednesday, April 21 – 8:00 am – 3:00 pm
Becoming Historic Redevelopment-Ready
Join Corey Leon from the National Development Council for an introduction to the dollars & “sense” of redeveloping a historic building using a computer spread sheet. We’ll touch on the benefits of owning real estate, and key financial documents, such as the pro forma, you need to complete in order to properly evaluate the potential for redeveloping any historic building. We will dig into how lenders review potential projects before they commit to construction and/or permanent financing, and how all the structured redevelopment pieces fit together to make the development happen. Dust off your Lotus 123, Quattro Pro, or Excel and get ready to use an income property spreadsheet for a deep dive into the critical financing perspective of historic building redevelopment. Computer access able to open and edit an Excel spreadsheet is required in order to complete the session cases.
Attracting What Your Community Wants & Needs in Your Downtown
In the afternoon, Jason Duff from Small Nation will discuss proven ways your community can recruit new and expanding businesses to your community. Whether its solving your downtown vacancy problem or how to have a productive conversation with a developer, Jason has a solution for your community. Jason will also share several strategies on nurturing your existing downtown businesses to help them be even more successful.
Speaker
Corey Leon
Corey Leon is a director with the National Development Council’s Central Team. Corey is an Economic and Housing Development Finance Professional with over 20 years of experience in community economic development, with an emphasis on real estate finance. He has a full working knowledge of financial underwriting for commercial real estate, residential development and business credit and is skilled in utilizing a broad range of financial resources to structure creative financial packages that bridge the gap between development costs and private sector investment. Corey has assisted with the financial structuring of over $500 million in closed transactions for real estate developments and small business finance transactions.
Jason Duff
Jason Duff is the Founder of Small Nation which encompasses a group of companies, leaders and investors who develop places, spaces and dreams for small towns and small-town entrepreneurs across the county. Jason and his team at Small Nation have completely revitalized the town of Bellefontaine, Ohio. In 7 short years, they have turned a dying town and helped make it a Best-in-State destination.
Jason and his team can be credited with renovating more than 30 historic buildings, started and founded 14 new businesses that have hired more than 190 employees, 18 new loft apartments and they continue to lead and inspire in making towns and communities strong.
Jason serves on Small Business Advisory Council for US Chamber, is a regular contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur & Inc Magazine, has been recognized by the White House as Top100 Entrepreneurs in 2013 and 2015, and was recently named Heritage Ohio’s 2019 Young Preservationist of the Year.
