$55m loan means smooth sailing for visionary developer.

A dream was coming true for an affiliate of YJR Realty, LLC. They were working on bringing a complicated development to fruition on waterfront property in Georgia, a development that would literally change the face of a town.

When completed, the project will be a large-scale waterfront resort and community, a 'city within a city', containing hundreds of residential units. There will be high-density, single-family homes in a town center setting, and retail businesses along a central boulevard. Several mid- and high-rise condominium buildings along the perimeters will total several hundred one, two, and three-bedroom units. The 'city' will also feature a lifestyle center with a clubhouse, themed pool area, tennis center, a condo hotel, restaurants and shops. A private boardwalk will run along the waterfront, and owners will be granted membership to a nearby golf club. The development will also have private beach clubs, a fitness center, and a spa.

The most unusual attraction with the development, however, is that it will boast one of the few new deep water marinas to be permitted on the Atlantic coast in recent history. Plans call for hundreds of wet slips as well as dry slips, and many lots have views of the water. All in all, the development is in a desirable location, with the finest amenities, and many of the lots were already sold.

In addition, the project was enthusiastically supported by the city. The development has the potential to generate increased commercial and retail revenue for local businesses, and also to decrease the tax burden across the board in the city. One city estimate for the development's impact placed the annual property tax revenue from the site at several million dollars when completed. The city currently operates on an annual budget that derives a total annual property tax revenue of approximately one-half of that figure at the present time.

There was a problem, however. The project had been self-funded, resulting in a development pace slower than the developers or the city desired. So in order to increase development speed, extra funding was needed. And the company, in fact, had arranged financing through a small bank.

However, after dragging out the process, the bank finally admitted it was unable (or unwilling) to fund. So, with time becoming more crucial by the day, the developers needed to make other arrangements. Fortunately, those arrangements turned out to be with Kennedy Funding.

Since their inception, Kennedy has specialized in making the 'impossible' loan not only possible but routine, thanks to speed, flexibility and creativity which traditional lenders simply cannot, or will not, provide. Kennedy can close loans in days instead of weeks or months, and specializes in something else that conventional lenders typically shun: raw land loans.

As Kennedy president and Co-CEO Jeffrey Wolfer puts it, "More and more, we see traditional lenders pulling out of the residential market, for one reason or another. And even in a case like this one, they can't seem to see the vision in the plan. We, on the other hand, always consider a loan on its own merits.

"If the loan appears viable, and our due diligence confirms it, we'll find a way to make the loan work. In this case, the project was already in development, the city was fully behind it, and its future was assured. So we had no problem accepting part of the undeveloped land as collateral and making them the loan that the banks couldn't--or wouldn't."