Notes from viewing the property

[Jess Rawsthorne]

Hey guys,

This is my take:

Overall there are enough viable structures with zero mould or leaks that we feel this property is worth further investigation, but maybe not for all of us depending on which parts of this project are most important to you.  Beginning to look at other viable properties isn't a bad idea.  But there is a ton of great infrastructure for us to work with. Three structures would likely need to be removed and the remaining will all still need roofs and cosmetic upgrades.  These buildings include: 1 house,  both dorms buildings, the commercial kitchen and dining room and approx. 75% of the school.  25% of the school (administrative building) would need mould remediation and ours hopes is that it is contained to this one area, Rachelle believes so based on the surrounding concrete floor and walls.

The gym has a concrete floor, metal roof and walls and is absolutely disgusting. Apparently the water is  coming in through the screw holes in the roof, it has pooled in puddles on the floor. Likely salvageable but at what cost? New roof and refinishing of concrete floors, upstairs bathroom/shower room would need full remediation

The buildings that are a complete loss (in our opinion but maybe remediation would say otherwise) are:

- 2 Staff ATCO trailers

(these are both on trailers and can be hauled away and demolished off site for aprox. $15K.) That site already has power and septic ran to it so the Nickle Brothers house that we are being gifted could be put in its place at a cheaper cost than running these services to a new site.

- 1 House

(This is the largest family dwelling.  The owner and realtor claimed it is salvageable because it has metal walls and concrete floors.  Everyone who saw it Friday + Saturday would disagree.)  Rachelle calculated demolition costs for this building at around $40K. Again, we could move mobiles there and save ourselves the cost of running septic, power and pouring a foundation.)

One of the shops has a huge foundation crack, and needs new roof.

The was another part of the school we found concerning and the owner showed us that there was a pipe that froze and burst and he "remedied" area.  It looked like a terrible patch job but with the lights on we could easily see into the attic area and everything was 100% dry. The attics all looked dry in these areas of the school that had visible water damage on the ceilings.   Again, remediation can determine this for sure if we choose to pursue it.

Other factors:

Negative: Our "dream garden site" is the SEPTIC FIELD!! Bahahahah oh boy.  We also can not build on this site because there are pipes running under it and it could collapse.

Positive/Solution:  There is a lot of rough forest/ raw land surrounding the buildings that we could turn to farming, food forest etc.  We can also landscape the property in a way that would be really cool with all edible landscaping.  There is lots of cheap land in the surrounding area.  If the people interested more in the agricultural and food sustainability side of this wanted to  purchase an acre or two in the surrounding area we could look at working that into our collectives initial start up costs.

Closing remarks:  Our next steps to see if this is viable or not would be for the collective to have a discussion around how this changes our plan for living accommodations, farming and food sustainability, the viable areas would allow most of our business plans to work, what remediation costs would look like etc.

We met the neighbor who is a contractor and told us he estimated the remediation/ rebuild costs around $700 000- $1.5 million. He said he would help us out, and was very excited to hear that a group might be going into the area. He was super friendly and gave us a good feeling for the area.  He said the majority of the buildings have really good bones, were built well and the whole facility was originally immaculate but that this owner has let it go and is charging too much for it.

My personal feelings are that if we still want to explore this further we need to get a remediation team in there and get the cost for a full remediation of the 25% of the school and gym.  If it is still feasible, then we would take the 2 atco trailers and 1 house as a loss.  Add up the cost of remediation and demolition and subtract it from the original asking price of $4.4 and offer him that.  But not until remediation, structural engineer and infrastructure inspections have all been done and check out.

It was clear that the owner is a airplane builder not a home builder,  he had a really good knowledge of the utilities and you could tell those parts were well maintained ex. electrical, heat, water and septic systems (from what we could tell) but we want a professional opinion of course.  The areas he was still operating summer camps out of and living in himself are also well maintained and the areas he wasn't using like the staff accommodation trailers and the 1 house have all completely gone to shit and are likely worthless.

I have no idea why the realtor thought it was a good idea to show us the 3 complete tare downs first, and then the good parts we were either unable to access or we could access them but in the dark with no lights!  She wanted to "get the worst over with first" but most of us were to scared to see anything else after the first 3 places!
 
We knew there was going to be a lot of initial upgrades needed to this property.  So if we can get an idea of the remediation costs and negotiate on the price perhaps this is still viable.

If so, other next steps would be going after micro-financing through various private lenders and donors that we currently have access to.  We would likely ask for $5-6 or whatever we deem the cost of purchase, remediation, relocation of mobiles and additional housing, upgrades and started up investment.   And ideally the investors believe in our vision and don't want to charge us very much interest, no interest, or partial/full donation.  

We also thought it would be very easy for us to live in the existing buildings without feeling at all like we were "cohousing" which is a big discussion and may only be for a limited time period to begin with.

Other announcements:

1) I have had several meetings with my now mentor and former boss at the holistic clinic I worked at for a decade in Calgary. She has shared similar business plans with us which I will add into the Business Plan forum. This includes ideas for wellness and wilderness retreats, digital detox, etc.  Her plans are based for the island already and include research about available grants, subsidies and our local demographics.  Including the fact that the Island only grows 14% of its own food and there is TONS of money available to help groups become more food sustainable on the island. As well as opportunity for us to become self-sufficient and sovereign by making big profits all the while helping the world.

2) I had a meeting with one of my clients who is grant writer and she gave lots of similar advice and insight. Billions of dollars in grant money each year goes to waste.  She would write the grants for us and take a commission out of the grant money when/ if we get it.  Based on our concept she thought there were many avenues we could qualify for and with potentially little government overreach.

I will continue to explore these avenues for our group in general regardless of if we get this property or a different one.

Onwards and Upwards,
Jess

Attachments below:

-The buildings estimated cost to replace, current value (if it was properly maintained), and demolition cost.

Google Doc Links:

1) The terrifying mould photos of 3 buildings to be demolished and 1 to be remediated, with some photos of nice parts but mostly the bad.

2) Videos of the good parts minus the school (there might be some pics of that part) kitchen, dorms.

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/10tsMrJ8wAct8IPnsv3nEgRv8jiQLZ7XL?usp=sharinghttps://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/10tsMrJ8wAct8IPnsv3nEgRv8jiQLZ7XL?usp=sharing

[Rachelle]

Jess Rawsthorne wrote

Hey guys,

This is my take:

Overall there are enough viable structures with zero mould or leaks that we feel this property is worth further investigation, but maybe not for all of us depending on which parts of this project are most important to you.  Beginning to look at other viable properties isn't a bad idea.  But there is a ton of great infrastructure for us to work with. Three structures would likely need to be removed and the remaining will all still need roofs and cosmetic upgrades.  These buildings include: 1 house,  both dorms buildings, the commercial kitchen and dining room and approx. 75% of the school.  25% of the school (administrative building) would need mould remediation and ours hopes is that it is contained to this one area, Rachelle believes so based on the surrounding concrete floor and walls.

The gym has a concrete floor, metal roof and walls and is absolutely disgusting. Apparently the water is  coming in through the screw holes in the roof, it has pooled in puddles on the floor. Likely salvageable but at what cost? New roof and refinishing of concrete floors, upstairs bathroom/shower room would need full remediation

The buildings that are a complete loss (in our opinion but maybe remediation would say otherwise) are:

- 2 Staff ATCO trailers

(these are both on trailers and can be hauled away and demolished off site for aprox. $15K.) That site already has power and septic ran to it so the Nickle Brothers house that we are being gifted could be put in its place at a cheaper cost than running these services to a new site.

- 1 House

(This is the largest family dwelling.  The owner and realtor claimed it is salvageable because it has metal walls and concrete floors.  Everyone who saw it Friday + Saturday would disagree.)  Rachelle calculated demolition costs for this building at around $40K. Again, we could move mobiles there and save ourselves the cost of running septic, power and pouring a foundation.)

One of the shops has a huge foundation crack, and needs new roof.

The was another part of the school we found concerning and the owner showed us that there was a pipe that froze and burst and he "remedied" area.  It looked like a terrible patch job but with the lights on we could easily see into the attic area and everything was 100% dry. The attics all looked dry in these areas of the school that had visible water damage on the ceilings.   Again, remediation can determine this for sure if we choose to pursue it.

Other factors:

Negative: Our "dream garden site" is the SEPTIC FIELD!! Bahahahah oh boy.  We also can not build on this site because there are pipes running under it and it could collapse.

Positive/Solution:  There is a lot of rough forest/ raw land surrounding the buildings that we could turn to farming, food forest etc.  We can also landscape the property in a way that would be really cool with all edible landscaping.  There is lots of cheap land in the surrounding area.  If the people interested more in the agricultural and food sustainability side of this wanted to  purchase an acre or two in the surrounding area we could look at working that into our collectives initial start up costs.

Closing remarks:  Our next steps to see if this is viable or not would be for the collective to have a discussion around how this changes our plan for living accommodations, farming and food sustainability, the viable areas would allow most of our business plans to work, what remediation costs would look like etc.

We met the neighbor who is a contractor and told us he estimated the remediation/ rebuild costs around $700 000- $1.5 million. He said he would help us out, and was very excited to hear that a group might be going into the area. He was super friendly and gave us a good feeling for the area.  He said the majority of the buildings have really good bones, were built well and the whole facility was originally immaculate but that this owner has let it go and is charging too much for it.

My personal feelings are that if we still want to explore this further we need to get a remediation team in there and get the cost for a full remediation of the 25% of the school and gym.  If it is still feasible, then we would take the 2 atco trailers and 1 house as a loss.  Add up the cost of remediation and demolition and subtract it from the original asking price of $4.4 and offer him that.  But not until remediation, structural engineer and infrastructure inspections have all been done and check out.

It was clear that the owner is a airplane builder not a home builder,  he had a really good knowledge of the utilities and you could tell those parts were well maintained ex. electrical, heat, water and septic systems (from what we could tell) but we want a professional opinion of course.  The areas he was still operating summer camps out of and living in himself are also well maintained and the areas he wasn't using like the staff accommodation trailers and the 1 house have all completely gone to shit and are likely worthless.

I have no idea why the realtor thought it was a good idea to show us the 3 complete tare downs first, and then the good parts we were either unable to access or we could access them but in the dark with no lights!  She wanted to "get the worst over with first" but most of us were to scared to see anything else after the first 3 places!
 
We knew there was going to be a lot of initial upgrades needed to this property.  So if we can get an idea of the remediation costs and negotiate on the price perhaps this is still viable.

If so, other next steps would be going after micro-financing through various private lenders and donors that we currently have access to.  We would likely ask for $5-6 or whatever we deem the cost of purchase, remediation, relocation of mobiles and additional housing, upgrades and started up investment.   And ideally the investors believe in our vision and don't want to charge us very much interest, no interest, or partial/full donation.  

We also thought it would be very easy for us to live in the existing buildings without feeling at all like we were "cohousing" which is a big discussion and may only be for a limited time period to begin with.

Other announcements:

1) I have had several meetings with my now mentor and former boss at the holistic clinic I worked at for a decade in Calgary. She has shared similar business plans with us which I will add into the Business Plan forum. This includes ideas for wellness and wilderness retreats, digital detox, etc.  Her plans are based for the island already and include research about available grants, subsidies and our local demographics.  Including the fact that the Island only grows 14% of its own food and there is TONS of money available to help groups become more food sustainable on the island. As well as opportunity for us to become self-sufficient and sovereign by making big profits all the while helping the world.

2) I had a meeting with one of my clients who is grant writer and she gave lots of similar advice and insight. Billions of dollars in grant money each year goes to waste.  She would write the grants for us and take a commission out of the grant money when/ if we get it.  Based on our concept she thought there were many avenues we could qualify for and with potentially little government overreach.

I will continue to explore these avenues for our group in general regardless of if we get this property or a different one.

Onwards and Upwards,
Jess

Attachments below:

-The buildings estimated cost to replace, current value (if it was properly maintained), and demolition cost.

Google Doc Links:

1) The terrifying mould photos of 3 buildings to be demolished and 1 to be remediated, with some photos of nice parts but mostly the bad.

2) Videos of the good parts minus the school (there might be some pics of that part) kitchen, dorms.

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/10tsMrJ8wAct8IPnsv3nEgRv8jiQLZ7XL?usp=sharinghttps://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/10tsMrJ8wAct8IPnsv3nEgRv8jiQLZ7XL?usp=sharing

I would also like to add my cost analysis on the replacement cost of the buildings (as though built new to current building codes) and rhe dellmolition estimate of each building. Note, this could be double if hazardous material is present. Also, this does not include site services or improvements (pavement, septic, well, etc.)