Douglas Gordon/Jennifer Kern
707 Marshal Drive
Belton, TX 76573
254-319-7066

At the time of arrival at the SBDC, Wheels was an idea and a pre-venture business.  Jennifer Kern and Douglas Gordon led a group consisting of her sister and their two husbands attempting to purchase a skating rink.

The clients originally came to the SBDC because they were having problems purchasing an existing rink in Copperas Cove.   The real estate agents handling the deal were misinformed and giving them bad information about purchasing the rink.   They had warned Jennifer and her people that the Home Act was about to come into law and because of that law, they needed to hurry up and buy the property.  Jennifer continued to put more money down in order to get more time to buy the property.  So after a couple extensions, Jennifer and her people were down more than $50,000.  They came to me at the SBDC to find out what they could do.

We had several meetings with counseling both here at the center and at their new location.  After studying the Home Act and contacting HUD, I discovered that the Home Act had nothing to do with commercial property.   It only dealt with residential property.   Consequently, Jennifer and her people had put non-refundable money down in order to avoid a law that didn’t apply.  I told them to get rid of their real estate agent and their lawyer, because they were all in cahoots together.  I recommended a lawyer in Waco, and things smoothed out.   They cut their losses and found a skating rink in Temple which was for sale and priced $200,000 less than the Copperas Cove rink.

Once the deal was done, Jennifer and her people were able to add, with the help of a new credit line, over $150,000 in improvements to the building.  

The length of time, from our first visit has been well over a year and continues past today. The effect of the assistance, as Jennifer would likely tell you, is to make it possible for them to be in business.  On August 13th, they had a grand opening with $40,000 of new skates and a newly remodeled business.   After contacting the Mayor of Temple, he agreed to be part of the festivities.