Friday, July 11, 2008
Back to Business!
After taking a week from working on our Totty Street project we're back to business. We created a punchlist of what's left to finish and we're knocking that list out one by one. Refinishing the hardwood floors is a challenge but easier than we expected. We just knew the Drum sander would throw one of us into a wall or something! We just lucked up and missed the wall :) Finished pics coming soon......
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
After Four long months.....
WE FINALLY CLOSE!! Our Contruction loan days are over (for now) and we're in a fixed mortgage. Sure it was only suppose to be a 3 month term and we needed an extension but we've learned from our mistakes. We close Monday and we're happy we've finally reached this point.
Refinish the floors, tackle the backyard (or contract out) and we're done pretty much. We've learned a lot from our first property and we may shed a tear once we get an offer.........Na we doubt it, we'll jump for joy!! :)
Refinish the floors, tackle the backyard (or contract out) and we're done pretty much. We've learned a lot from our first property and we may shed a tear once we get an offer.........Na we doubt it, we'll jump for joy!! :)
Monopoly
Real Estate is like Monopoly! We're all trying to buy 3 houses, trade them in for 1 Hotel and repeat the steps over and over! We love it though!
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Governor to be on hand for plant opening
Richmond Times DispatchPublished: May 21, 2008
Some 175 workers are on the job as a Swedish furniture maker officially opens its 930,000-square-foot manufacturing center today.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will be in Danville this morning to help Swedwood celebrate the opening of its Danville plant. The company is a subsidiary of IKEA, and the plant will make several lines for the home furnishings giant.
Swedwood North America president Bengt Danielsson said the plant expects to employ about 300 by the end of 2009. In 10 to 15 years, it could expand to have 800 workers.
IKEA spokesman Joseph Roth said infrastructure was in place for the plant, and Swedwood was offered $6.4 million in state money. Swedwood has 40 plants worldwide, but the Danville operation is its only unit in North America.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will be in Danville this morning to help Swedwood celebrate the opening of its Danville plant. The company is a subsidiary of IKEA, and the plant will make several lines for the home furnishings giant.
Swedwood North America president Bengt Danielsson said the plant expects to employ about 300 by the end of 2009. In 10 to 15 years, it could expand to have 800 workers.
IKEA spokesman Joseph Roth said infrastructure was in place for the plant, and Swedwood was offered $6.4 million in state money. Swedwood has 40 plants worldwide, but the Danville operation is its only unit in North America.
Danville is on the road to economic revival
Sunday, May 18, 2008 - 12:06 AM
By REX BOWMAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Here in Danville, signs abound of a troubled city reinventing itself.
Around the corner from Main Street's vacant storefronts are brick buildings rejuvenated by freshly painted murals.
Near impoverished neighborhoods of crumbling homes, vacant tobacco warehouses are being converted into tony lofts. And down the road from a now idle textile plant, new industries are arriving.
"We're up and coming," said Jeremy Stratton, economic development director for the city in Southside Virginia.
Over the past decade, the demise of Virginia's textile industry and the changing nature of the tobacco market have hammered Danville and surrounding Pittsylvania County, where people have counted on jobs in the tobacco trade since 1793 and in the textile plants since 1882.
Textile giant Dan River Inc., which employed 20,000 workers in its heyday, is now gone. And tobacco and money no longer change hands in the warehouses down by the Dan River.
Five years ago, the city's unemployment rate ran in double digits, and in March unemployment still hit 9 percent. Statewide the rate was 3.9 percent.
Yet the latest sign that the city may have put its tobacco-and-textile past behind it and turned a corner on hard times comes Wednesday, when Swedwood North America, IKEA's furniture-making subsidiary, officially opens its massive plant. The governor is expected to show up and praise company officials for promising to deliver 740 jobs to the beleaguered region.
Swedwood is one of a string of companies that since 2004 have promised to create roughly 6,600 jobs in and around Danville.
The other companies include Yorktowne Cabinetry, Telvista, Boscov's and Com.40 Ltd., a Polish mattress maker that plans to employ more than 800 people.
Bill Mezger, senior economist with the Virginia Employment Commission, said the city had a net gain of 100 jobs in 2007 -- the first job gain in many years.
And, according to Stratton, more than 3,000 of the promised 6,600 jobs are still to be delivered, meaning that Danville's unemployment rate will keep dropping as the jobs arrive.
"Check back with us in a couple of years, and that unemployment number is sure to be a lot smaller," Stratton said.
. . .
The Swedwood plant is already producing furniture, employing 175 people.
That means salvation to many local residents, said James Evans, a 42-year-old Danville resident who in April 2006 lost his job at Dan River after 20 years with the company. Evans now works at Swedwood.
Among the last employees left at Dan River when the company shut down, the former technician said he had no health insurance, only payments to make on his car, his house and his pool.
After scraping by for months on construction jobs, he underwent training in manufacturing at the local community college and landed a job with Swedwood in January 2007. Sixteen months into the job, he said his $13.25-an-hour wage is already more than what he made after 20 years with Dan River. He also has health insurance again.
"The opportunity here is a great opportunity," said Evans. "All of the people here, after being out of work for years, we were looking for something that we could sink our teeth into and be a part of it. This company, they said the opportunity is here for us and our children."
Fellow Swedwood employee Debra Alderson told a similar tale. After 14 years as an employee for a tobacco company, her job evaporated when the company moved to Raleigh, N.C.
"I was a little worried about it because of my age," said Alderson, 53. "To really find something good, I thought I might have to move."
Instead, she jumped into a job at Swedwood, working the front desk in the company lobby.
. . .
Danville's rebound is no accident, according to officials.
They said they've vigorously courted companies, extended water and sewer lines and pitched the city's location on a rail line, its ready-to-work labor pool and the low cost of doing business. Weekly wages in Danville were $593 last year, compared with a state average of $859, according to state statistics.
The city has opened two industrial parks, the 250-acre Cyber Park and, with Pittsylvania County, the 900-acre Cane Creek Centre Industrial Park.
Danville Community College opened a Regional Center for Advanced Training and Technology in the Cyber Park to train workers for companies willing to move to Danville. The Cyber Park is also home to the Institute of Advanced Learning and Research, where 34 researchers from universities, including Virginia Tech, carry on their work.
Cane Creek, meanwhile, has grown to include companies such as Nestle, Essel Propack, Telvista, Electronic Design and Sales Inc. and Swedwood. The city is erecting a 100,000-square-foot shell building in anticipation that it can lure another company in.
The state has helped with deal-closing incentives to bring companies to Danville. Swedwood, for instance, was offered $6.4 million in state money, while Com.40 was promised $2.4 million in aid.
And while the downtown is moribund -- a problem not unique to Danville -- commercial areas with big-box retailers on the west and east ends of the city are thriving and even expanded in recent years.
The city's population has remained flat, yet its sales-tax revenue has jumped from $6.8 million in 2000 to $7.9 million last year, suggesting residents today have more money to spend.
To help the downtown reflect Danville's newfound vibrancy, the city has helped businesses and building owners refurbish their facades, encouraged the use of murals to freshen up exteriors and helped turn the abandoned buildings in the Tobacco Warehouse Historic District into condominiums.
The lower cost of living has already attracted buyers from the Northeast and Northern Virginia, said Susan Stilwell, a real estate agent who works to sell the lofts.
"Danville is a very attractive place for early retirees in their 50s," she said. "They can come down here and retire as wealthy people."
City officials are now trying to persuade entrepreneurs to open more restaurants downtown. With more Danville residents working, they think there's a growing desire to feast.
By REX BOWMAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Here in Danville, signs abound of a troubled city reinventing itself.
Around the corner from Main Street's vacant storefronts are brick buildings rejuvenated by freshly painted murals.
Near impoverished neighborhoods of crumbling homes, vacant tobacco warehouses are being converted into tony lofts. And down the road from a now idle textile plant, new industries are arriving.
"We're up and coming," said Jeremy Stratton, economic development director for the city in Southside Virginia.
Over the past decade, the demise of Virginia's textile industry and the changing nature of the tobacco market have hammered Danville and surrounding Pittsylvania County, where people have counted on jobs in the tobacco trade since 1793 and in the textile plants since 1882.
Textile giant Dan River Inc., which employed 20,000 workers in its heyday, is now gone. And tobacco and money no longer change hands in the warehouses down by the Dan River.
Five years ago, the city's unemployment rate ran in double digits, and in March unemployment still hit 9 percent. Statewide the rate was 3.9 percent.
Yet the latest sign that the city may have put its tobacco-and-textile past behind it and turned a corner on hard times comes Wednesday, when Swedwood North America, IKEA's furniture-making subsidiary, officially opens its massive plant. The governor is expected to show up and praise company officials for promising to deliver 740 jobs to the beleaguered region.
Swedwood is one of a string of companies that since 2004 have promised to create roughly 6,600 jobs in and around Danville.
The other companies include Yorktowne Cabinetry, Telvista, Boscov's and Com.40 Ltd., a Polish mattress maker that plans to employ more than 800 people.
Bill Mezger, senior economist with the Virginia Employment Commission, said the city had a net gain of 100 jobs in 2007 -- the first job gain in many years.
And, according to Stratton, more than 3,000 of the promised 6,600 jobs are still to be delivered, meaning that Danville's unemployment rate will keep dropping as the jobs arrive.
"Check back with us in a couple of years, and that unemployment number is sure to be a lot smaller," Stratton said.
. . .
The Swedwood plant is already producing furniture, employing 175 people.
That means salvation to many local residents, said James Evans, a 42-year-old Danville resident who in April 2006 lost his job at Dan River after 20 years with the company. Evans now works at Swedwood.
Among the last employees left at Dan River when the company shut down, the former technician said he had no health insurance, only payments to make on his car, his house and his pool.
After scraping by for months on construction jobs, he underwent training in manufacturing at the local community college and landed a job with Swedwood in January 2007. Sixteen months into the job, he said his $13.25-an-hour wage is already more than what he made after 20 years with Dan River. He also has health insurance again.
"The opportunity here is a great opportunity," said Evans. "All of the people here, after being out of work for years, we were looking for something that we could sink our teeth into and be a part of it. This company, they said the opportunity is here for us and our children."
Fellow Swedwood employee Debra Alderson told a similar tale. After 14 years as an employee for a tobacco company, her job evaporated when the company moved to Raleigh, N.C.
"I was a little worried about it because of my age," said Alderson, 53. "To really find something good, I thought I might have to move."
Instead, she jumped into a job at Swedwood, working the front desk in the company lobby.
. . .
Danville's rebound is no accident, according to officials.
They said they've vigorously courted companies, extended water and sewer lines and pitched the city's location on a rail line, its ready-to-work labor pool and the low cost of doing business. Weekly wages in Danville were $593 last year, compared with a state average of $859, according to state statistics.
The city has opened two industrial parks, the 250-acre Cyber Park and, with Pittsylvania County, the 900-acre Cane Creek Centre Industrial Park.
Danville Community College opened a Regional Center for Advanced Training and Technology in the Cyber Park to train workers for companies willing to move to Danville. The Cyber Park is also home to the Institute of Advanced Learning and Research, where 34 researchers from universities, including Virginia Tech, carry on their work.
Cane Creek, meanwhile, has grown to include companies such as Nestle, Essel Propack, Telvista, Electronic Design and Sales Inc. and Swedwood. The city is erecting a 100,000-square-foot shell building in anticipation that it can lure another company in.
The state has helped with deal-closing incentives to bring companies to Danville. Swedwood, for instance, was offered $6.4 million in state money, while Com.40 was promised $2.4 million in aid.
And while the downtown is moribund -- a problem not unique to Danville -- commercial areas with big-box retailers on the west and east ends of the city are thriving and even expanded in recent years.
The city's population has remained flat, yet its sales-tax revenue has jumped from $6.8 million in 2000 to $7.9 million last year, suggesting residents today have more money to spend.
To help the downtown reflect Danville's newfound vibrancy, the city has helped businesses and building owners refurbish their facades, encouraged the use of murals to freshen up exteriors and helped turn the abandoned buildings in the Tobacco Warehouse Historic District into condominiums.
The lower cost of living has already attracted buyers from the Northeast and Northern Virginia, said Susan Stilwell, a real estate agent who works to sell the lofts.
"Danville is a very attractive place for early retirees in their 50s," she said. "They can come down here and retire as wealthy people."
City officials are now trying to persuade entrepreneurs to open more restaurants downtown. With more Danville residents working, they think there's a growing desire to feast.
3707 Totty Street offered at 125,000
Priced to Sell! Easy to show. Motivate sellers... Fully renovated w/TLC & great craftsmanship. Located in the quaint town of Ettrick & within walking distance to Va State Univ. on dead-n-street. All NEW plumbing, electrical, heat pump, vinly siding, thermal windows. New gravel walkway leads to new front door. Roof is approx. 5 yrs old. New S/R walls, painted & refinished hardwood floors thruout. Kitchen has wainscotting & updated w/recess lighting, clg fan, ceramic tile flooring...new stove, exhaust fan, dishwasher & disposal. Bath updated w/ceramic tile flooring, new surround & new water heater. Util. room has vinyl floor & plumb for stackable w/dryer. Loft ceiling & clg fans w/lights in bedrms & L/R. Partially unfinished basement. Don' miss the opportunity to view this home!!! Directions:From blvd in Col Hgt, R on Dupuy Rd, L on Granger St, L on Chesterfield Ave, R on Totty St. Call Donna Sizemore at 804-873-2721 for showing.
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