BELMEAD RFP
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are finally moving forward.
For the past month or so, The Executive Board of Book & Candle have had
weekly conference calls with an entities that propose to partner
with Book and Candle (B&C) in its response to the RFP issued by the
Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (SBS) for the development of the St.
Francis de Sales school building, four outbuildings and 25 contiguous
acres.
The discussions with those entities have been the most promising of some
three/four other discussions and meetings we have had with other
entities introduced to us by Papasteye Das, B&C Consultant.
Papasteye has painstakingly sought out developers, venture capitalists,
direct service providers and maintained relationships with Howard and
Catholic Universities and others who might partner in the response to
the RFP. We are grateful to him for introducing us to viable contacts
and taking the lead in promoting dialogue with them because of his
relationships with them, proximity and commitment to our vision.
The group has pulled together a team that is well positioned to
develop the vision B&C has for the property. Last weekend four of
us met to discuss the costs associated with creating and
assembling a competitive response to the RFP as well as preliminarily
discussing a management and development organizational structure that
includes B&C (as the lead entity), and others.
B&C is one of some ten (10) registered developers who received the RFP and attendant due diligence documents and from whom responses will be accepted. We do not know the names of the other entities as the SBS elected not to share that information. The RFP has been distributed to all prospective partners to facilitate The understanding of the scope of services and response requirements. The development specialist proposes to write, assemble required documents, package and distribute our response. They will submit the package by the deadline date (January 20th) . We will work out the terms of the balance when we receive their proposed repayment request. A very rough estimate of the development costs of the St. Francis project is some $28M so the cost of the RFP response package is well within what is customary.
Needless to say, B&C does not have funds to underwrite
this cost. We were, however, introduced to a venture capitalist
that is willing to provide the Financial support. This will put us
in the ballgame.
Ken Harris has begun to talk to other sources who may buy
into this project by providing some or all of the cost of this
planning document and Ken feels comfortable that he will be successful
in his fundraising campaign on behalf of B&C. This is his
territory and he has documented success in this arena.