For investors & capital partners
An operator who already did it, looking for the capital to do it again.
Most sponsors bring you a pro forma. We bring a building we bought abandoned for $75,000, renovated ourselves, cut into 56 rentable units, and still run today — plus the underwriting card that says which building should be next.
The thesis
Buy the discount, not the recovery.
This strategy does not need cap rates to compress, rents to spike, or a town to gentrify. The return is manufactured on day one by paying single-digit dollars per square foot for a building that costs $50 to $100 a foot to replace, and then converting a use nobody wants into a use fifty people want.
Downside protection comes from the same place. If the plan stalls, the asset is still a functional industrial building bought at a fraction of its replacement cost in a county with 4.75% industrial vacancy. There is very little room underneath that price.
$12–14/SF all-in
Bought at $2.21/SF, built out for $10–12. Against $50–$100/SF to build new.
56 units
Largest lease is about 12% of the roll; most are under 5%.
No on-site staff
Keypad access and an online portal replace a leasing office.
An unserved niche
Small bays for trades — a customer big industrial landlords ignore.
Structure
Aligned, because we stay in the deal.
We are not a fee-only property manager and we are not a flipper. On each building we take an equity position alongside our capital partners and earn a management fee for operating it — so the thing that makes us money is the thing that makes the building work.
Acquisition and conversion capital
The purchase is usually the small number. The build-out — walls, power, heat, doors, docks, pavement, access control — is where the capital actually goes, and it is spent in stages as units lease up rather than all at once.
Sourcing, conversion and operations
Finding the building and negotiating direct with the owner. Designing the unit mix. Performing or supervising the conversion. Leasing, collections, maintenance and reporting for as long as we own it — under leases and systems already proven in Waterloo.
Source and score
Direct-mail and drive-by sourcing in target towns; every candidate underwritten against the ten-criterion scorecard before an offer goes out.
Acquire as-is, cash
Speed and certainty are what get these buildings at these prices. Phase I environmental assessment before commitment on anything with industrial history.
Convert in stages
Build and lease in waves so capital goes in against signed demand rather than speculative square footage.
Stabilize and hold
Fill the building, take the CAM upside that gross leases leave on the table, and hold for cash flow — with a refinance or sale as an option, not an assumption.
Pipeline
The next buildings are already mapped.
We have profiled the small towns within about an hour of Waterloo that share its DNA — cheap industrial stock, a working blue-collar base, highway or rail access — and identified specific closed plants and distressed parcels in each.
Most of them are not listed for sale, which is precisely why they are worth chasing. Named targets and current status go out in the deal packet, not on a public web page.
| Garrett, DeKalb Co. | Rail hub, distribution and Dekko nearby; dense trades base |
|---|---|
| Auburn, DeKalb Co. | County seat, heavy manufacturing, strong incomes |
| Butler, DeKalb Co. | Steel industry, tiny town, very cheap stock, on I-69 |
| Kendallville, Noble Co. | Manufacturing center; older mill and flex buildings |
| Ligonier, Noble Co. | Industrial park with recent plant closures; rail served |
| Angola, Steuben Co. | County seat and university town; manufacturing plus steady demand |
Risk, straight
What can go wrong, and what we do about it.
Environmental liability
Former foundries and plants are cheap for a reason. Contamination can be an advantage — the price collapses and cleanup grants may apply — but only if it is measured first. We commission a Phase I environmental assessment before committing on any building with industrial history, and we walk from anything the numbers cannot carry.
Lease-up risk
A converted building only works if the units fill. We mitigate it by converting in stages against real demand, by keeping unit sizes small enough that the tenant pool is large, and by pricing to be the obvious option rather than the premium one.
Structural condition
Roofs are the expensive surprise in this asset class — Waterloo carries a roof replacement we price at about $200,000, and we underwrite it openly rather than hope it waits. Roof, structure and utility capacity are scored before an offer, and the conversion budget is built around the worst realistic case rather than the inspection-day one.
Small-town concentration
These are thin markets — that is the source of the discount and the source of the risk. We manage it by buying only where a real employment base exists within the trade area, and by spreading income across dozens of tenants rather than a handful.
Nothing on this page is an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or interest. Any investment would be made only through definitive documents, after your own due diligence and advice from your own counsel and tax advisors. Past performance of one property does not predict the results of any future acquisition.
Start with a phone call.
Tell us what you're looking to place and over what horizon. If it is not a fit we will say so on the first call.