Remodeling Timing

When I bought the original Conrad Mercantile almost three years ago, I didn’t have a solid plan for using the entire space.

After all, I didn’t really need a plan. The current retail tenants paid my bills and left a little cash left over for repairs and maintenance.

I could let that 100-year-old building just be what it was.

But it had been so much more.

It had been built as the hub of a burgeoning town back in 1920, where everything from local dairy products, meat and vegetables to hardware, farm equipment and household necessities were sold. The store employed many clerks and the bank in the corner of the building financed many projects.

Then, for more than 50 years, the Arnot family provided furniture and appliances for the entire north-central Montana region.

But by the time I signed the papers, only the street level was in use.

The brick and pier foundation was solid, but the basement and top story were gutted. The windows were bricked in.

It felt like a dark, cold, concrete cave with a few remnants of elegance.

I started thinking about how to restore this building’s glory.

Clearly, I needed to start with some infrastructure.

Heating, lighting, and insulation needed help before I could even think about top dressing walls, ceilings and floors.

I asked for advice from the local contractors who had helped me with projects at the ranch.

I trust them as partners.

It turns out that heating and lighting a 38,000 square foot building is expensive.

Financing became my next focus.

Bankers want to know how I might pay them back and I was curious about that question, too, so I started digging into potential income generators.

My conservative business plan did not impress any of the local banks, but a regional bank from Helena promised to help.

That is, if I could get a federal Rural Energy for America Program grant to pay for half of the energy efficiency improvements.

When the director of Montana’s REAP program sat at my picnic table and said he expected every project to pay back that grant with increased income taxes, I decided to apply.

After all, I couldn’t write an upfront check for those improvements even if they would eventually make a business cash flow.

Meanwhile, inflation jumped out of control, taking interest rates with it.

A project that penciled at 4% interest would not pay for itself at 9.5%.

News stations reported that tenants across the country were abandoning commercial buildings.

I looked at my building, knowing I could just sit on it, and wondered if my timing was oh so wrong.

At the same time, severe drought forced me to sell more cows than I kept.

My income has dropped for at least four years while I rebuild the herd – if the weather cooperates.

Despite all of the economic signals, I decided to push ahead.

After all, once the building is making money, increasingly-likely drought won’t hold as much power to decimate the ranch economically or environmentally.

It takes a long time to piece together a complicated financial package.

Finally, last December I got the green light.

So far, the buzzing old fluorescent lights are upgraded, two of the four furnaces are almost installed, several climate-controlled storage units are for rent and the insulation will be here this week.

Next week, hopefully, we will start cutting the bricks out and replacing windows.

Outside, the building still looks the same, but the cogs of change have been clanking inside.

I still don’t know whether my decision to do this now was brilliant or will bankrupt me, but I’ve never before been so excited about insulation and windows.