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Princeton Union Eagle -Thunder Alley default shakes loan lenders Page 1 of 4 Friday, October 26, 2007 'live search... Ho€ne News Sports Community Obituaries About Us Search Classifieds Reader's Stories Thunder Alley default shakes loan lenders ~ By Joel Stottrup The thunder has long subsided from the building with the curiously bad paint job off old Smith System Road in Princeton ever since the Thunder Alley Indoor Speedway closed its doors last year. Now the weeds are getting ever taller alongside the building and the doors are locked. But aside from the tall weeds and unsightly appearance of this building-that sits across from Fairview Northland Regional Medical Center-it has also left some lessons far local and regional governments on loaning money. The lessons came from the owner of the Thunder Alley Indoor Speedway business, Renee Stoddard; who only repaid $6,482 of the $135,000 loan the city gave her to help fill in the financing for the business. Plus the East Central Regional Development Commission, made up of a group of East Central Minnesota (ECRDC) cities including Princeton, lent Thunder Alley about $125,000 and she only repaid about $7,000 of that, according to ECRDC Executive Director Bob Voss. That's a loss of more than $246,000 in government money, not counting default on the private financing she received. Jay Blake, the current city economic development director, who wasn't in his job when Stoddard approached the city in 2004, said the city's loan was through its Economic Development Authority. The city EDA and the ECRDC loans add up to what is called gap financing. It serves to fill the gap between what a private lender would provide-First National Bank of Elk River in this case-and what the business required. The ending to the Thunder Alley business where the owner defaulted on the loans, government and private and where the property was foreclosed, is actually one of the things that most government officials don't like to talk about. Here tax money was lent out to help a business and the loans went bad. A story in the Sept. 16, 2004, Union-Eagle talked about Stoddard seeking the government gap financing and how she had hoped by that time, in 2004, to be up and operating Thunder Alley. She talked about plans to have not only two go-kart tracks, a paintball combat range and a mini golf course, but also eating facilities and a conference center. The go-kart tracks did materialize and later the paintball range was up and going. But her plans to have all kinds of commercial and industrial groups from the Twin Cities coming up to use the facility for conferences and recreation didn't turn out. She had told the Union-Eagle that she had operated a go-kart track in a former K- Mart building in Brooklyn Center between sometime in 2000 and February 2004. She said she thought she would be able to draw many of the clients she had there, up to Princeton. A story in the June 16, 2005, Union-Eagle told of Thunder Alley up and running in the building at that time. The building was once the Smith System factory until its closing sorne years earlier. Poll Question What do you think of the referendum for Princeton schools? -_'~ I will vote to support it. -_ , I will vote against it. _'~ I don't plan on voting. Vote Results Princeton Union Eagle P.O. Box 278 Princeton, MN 55371 Telephone: 763- 389-1222 Fax:763-389-1728 Contacts ECM Publishers, Inc. Nometown5ource Mille t..racs County Times Isanti County News Star News Capitol Roundup Qpi~r pH pia h V.Fk f,l~ J ..f t GJdSS~treels I ..~'~ r a '"" ~j ~ • } c qq~~ 4Q 7W'3o7'p~ t~ N r ,~ it ~ ~I S~~~!~ ~`~jj~r '~, _' ~r, ~_;xt~-;x i , .., ~ ,, : z. t,°, by 1 ~ MV^.. d ~(~~~ -'^}~ t '~' ^X~ i ,~ tnc~ R.y c J AUTO PART 1253G 314th Ave HW Prirueton, lAN 35311 ~`~i~-~3.~ ~~l ~ ~~ all-s~arautapa rts-4 om http://unioneagle.com/index.php?option=com content&task=view&id=415&Itemid=l 10/26/2007