Sperity Real Estate Ventures

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Starting a business in Richmond? You don’t want to miss this!

Being involved in helping start-ups in Richmond, we often get invitations to attend sessions put on by the Economic Development departments of the local governments. When we get them, I’ll make sure to post them here for your reference. The ones I’ve attended in the past have been extremely helpful and great brush ups on the resources that the localities provide for small business.

Here is the email from the City of Richmond that we received regarding the upcoming event:

As part of our  ongoing efforts to provide you with valuable information & resources, the City of Richmond Department of Economic and Community Development-Business First Richmond Program is pleased to announce another in our series of free educational seminars.

The City of Richmond Department of Economic & Community Development and the Virginia Department of Business Assistance will host the first in a two part series on establishing and  growing your business.   Part I in the series the” Entrepreneur Express Seminar” will address the basic concerns of establishing a business in Richmond.  The seminar will be held Wednesday, October 12, 2011 from 8:30 am to noon at the Police Training Academy, 1202 W. Graham Road, Richmond, Virginia 23220.  (See Entrepreneur Express Seminar Flyer for details)   Please share this information with your clients and colleagues.

To sign up (free!), you can either register online by clicking here, or call 804-371-0058.

Oh, and make sure to let me know if you’re going to be there! Leave a comment here or at least be sure to come up and say hello when  you see me there.

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Virginia ABC laws changing soon

Bar at Deanna's

*image courtesy of Alan Turkus (http://www.flickr.com/people/aturkus/)

A common complaint in the restaurant industry here in Richmond is about how outdated and difficult (and sometimes just plain nonsensical) the ABC regulations are, especially for start-ups. Well it might finally be time for that to change:

…the state’s Alcohol Beverage Control Board is for the first time in 20 years reviewing and updating all of its regulations in an effort to rewrite or eliminate any antiquated and burdensome restrictions. And they’ve asked the state’s merchants to help, giving them until Oct. 17 to propose changes.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

You heard them, folks. If you have an ABC license, then they want to hear from you! Be a part of the updates in the ABC laws. If you’ve seen what can be done better, now is your chance to speak up.

Where to speak up? I’m not exactly sure. I checked the Virginia ABC website and didn’t see anything specific about the initiative, but calling them directly would be a good place to start. If you do know the reporting process, please leave a comment with the information.

(Thank you to Richmond BizSense for pointing out this article in their morning email. If you’re not receiving it already, then you might want to rectify that.)

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7 key items to keep your corporation or LLC legitimate

No one likes to do paperwork. (well, almost no one — if you find that rare individual, hire them and keep them!)

In order to keep your corporation or LLC compliant, there are things that must be done consistently. These requirements are not onerous, but they are easy to overlook in the hustle of your day-to-day business.

I have seen a number of closing on business deals that are delayed because the corporate books weren’t kept up, or the annual fees weren’t paid and the corporation has to be re-instated. Be sure to set an appointment in your calendar once every 6 months to review all of these items and be sure that there is nothing that you need to catch up on.

Small Business Trends has a great post from this past week about this exact thing (here), so I won’t rehash it all over again. Here are the key points they make:

1. File your initial/annual reports (also known as a “Statement of Information”)

2. Keep up to date with your corporate minutes and resolutions

3. Record any changes for your corporation/LLC by Filing “Articles of Amendment”

4. Make sure you’re legal when conducting business out of state

5. Don’t commingle your personal and business finances

6. File DBAs for any name variations

7. Don’t forget to close an inactive business by dissolving your corporation/LLC

Read the full post for the details behind each of these pointers and consult with your accountant or your attorney, or whoever helps you with your corporate records.

If you are thinking of selling your business, this review should be on your checklist to take care of at the beginning of the selling process.

Take the little bit of time now to stay in compliance and avoid any red tape nightmares later when you find out that you didn’t!

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Small rental property owners breathe a sigh of relief

There is always a lot of new legislation passed every year that sounds like a good idea at the time and generally goes unnoticed, and every once in a while the consequences of that legislation become horrifyingly apparent afterwards.

This past year, the legislation that was causing so much heartburn for small property owners was a new IRS requirement that anyone with rental property file a 1099 for any repairs that add up to $600+ over the course of the year. (see my post about it here, from December 2010)

Good news — the provision was repealed before it could take effect!! (here is the actual legislation that was passed to repeal the IRS provision, in case you would like to read it)

Hats off to the Realtor community for standing against this for the good of the mom-and-pop investors, who are the ones would be most affected by those proposed requirements — and for Realtor Magazine’s blog for bringing the repeal to my attention. From their description of how everything unfolded, it seems as though everyone understood that this was good to do:

When the provision was included in the small business bill, REALTORS® were among the first and firmest opponents of it, helping to ensure that Congress understood the provision was an example of over-reach that was never intended to burden mom and pop property owners. Members of Congress and President Obama got the message and, in a rare example of agreement between not only Republicans, Democrats, and independents, but also between House and Senate chambers and between the legislative and executive branches, lawmakers agreed the provision needed to come out.

Nice to know that we don’t have this provision coming up to haunt us over the next few years, isn’t it?

 

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When should I sell my business?

Is now a good time to sell my small business?

What about all of the talk about changing the capital gains tax?

Should I sell now, or wait a couple of years?

What about the upcoming flood of retirees? Won’t all of that money coming into the market help increase prices?

Lucky for us, there is a recent article about exactly these questions in the New York Times from last Tuesday. Check out the article and the great comments by clicking here.

 

**I will delve into this topic more over the next year (and probably much longer than that, since this *is* what I do)

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How to make zoning easier to understand

Government regulations are typically so complicated that not only can the lay-person not understand what they mean, but they are written in such a way that even people that think they know what is meant are left arguing completely different interpretations.  Zoning regulations are no exception.

In fact, in NYC the zoning regulations are so convoluted that “In a recent case, a judge said the word “development,” which appears at least 2,500 times in the [zoning] resolution, did not mean what the city said.” (source: New York Times article — we’ll see more about that article in just a minute)

The Planning Commissioner for NYC, Amanda Burden, is attempting to make the zoning regulations a little more accessible to the general public by issuing a new city handbook with plain explanations and cartoon drawings that illustrate what particular zoning designations look like and what they mean.  Check out the coverage in the New York Times about what she has been doing to bridge that gap.

While this may not be the right approach for every locality, the idea is one that every local government should take to heart:  Start building tools that puts control of the government back into the hands of the people.  Sure, we elect officials to represent us and we should not be ruled by mob mentality (see: California), but the people also need to be able to understand what is being done — especially when we are expected to interpret these rules and abide by them.

I have seen far too many business and property owners try to follow the rules that have been laid out, only to find a health inspector or building inspector come in with a totally different understanding and cost the owner thousands of dollars in hard cost and lost business because the rules were not clear enough.

What do you think, Richmond? Have you had any issues with the local zoning regulations (city or county)? What would you suggest could be done to make the rules more clear?

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Redevelopment plans for Carytown get nod from Museum District

The redevelopment of the old Verizon building at 10 N. Nansemond Street has been hotly debated and contested. (see: the official site for the Carytown Place; Don’t Big Box Carytown‘s website; & this post and the accompanying comment thread on Caramelized Opinions for a good summary & feel of the debate)

The Museum District Association had originally ruled to oppose the redevelopment based on the original plans, but Friday they sent out a press release announcing the reversal of that position.  The gist of the situation can be summed up from this one paragraph in the press release:

The Board voted 13-1 in November to oppose the original SUP and subsequently provided the applicant with detailed requests for further changes to make it more amenable to the neighborhood. The applicant responded by altering the SUP to remove vehicular ingress/egress on Nansemond Street as well as reduce the number of available uses of the property to 10 uses. The applicant also agreed to limit the usable floor space of any one tenant to no more than 25,000 square feet, ensuring there would be multiple tenants in the building and ruling out a single, larger “big box” tenant.

The whole press release can be read here on the MDA’s website (right now it’s at the top, but it will shift down the page as new releases are issued).

What do you think? Are you satisfied with the MDA’s ruling, or are the changes in the plan not enough for you? In that case, what changes would be enough to get your support for the development?

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Important! New IRS requirements for all landlords

PaperworkAnyone receiving rental payments from either residential or commercial properties will need to review the newly-enacted small business legislation called HR5297 with their accountant and how it expands 1099 reporting requirements.

Currently, only real estate professionals that engage in property management services have to use 1099 forms to report any service provider that they pay more than $600 in a given tax year.

The changes will be enacted over the next two years as follows (details from the NAR Issue Brief released recently — can be found online here or hosted on my site here):

2011 Rule: ALL persons who receive rental payments must provide Form 1099. This affects ALL owners (both individuals and businesses) of rental properties, both residential and commercial. Thus, “mom and pop” investors and those who invest in real estate for their personal portfolios are subject to the new reporting requirement. Only aggregate annual payments of $600 or more for services (but not goods) must be reported.
2012 Rule: All businesses, including real estate businesses, self-employed individuals and independent contractors will be required to make a 1099 report of any aggregate annual payment of $600 or more to any person from whom they acquired goods and services.

Please keep in mind that I am not an accountant, so before you act on any of this information (or panic. or dismiss.) please consult with your accounting/tax professional.  But when I saw this come across my desk, I thought it was important that you are aware of these new rules!

(*Warning! Sales pitch!*) And, by the way, here at Bandazian & Holden, we have dealt with these reporting requirements from when they were first enacted for real estate professionals in the property management field, and we are accustomed to handling the necessary paperwork for our clients.  If you don’t feel like dealing with it on your own, let me know and come on board with us. (*End of warning. Enjoy your day!*)

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Richmond wins!

Winner at the Delta County Fair, Colorado (LOC)

We're number one!

As I mentioned earlier this year in “Richmond loves its working moms“, I appreciate when the rest of the world acknowledges Richmond’s superiority in all ways. It seems there are lists for everything, and while I find it to be overkill most of the time — any list can justify itself as being relevant and highly insightful by the obvious addition of Richmond (or Virginia as a whole) to the top of its rankings.

Imagine my delight when I found a helpfully compiled list of Richmond’s awards on the Greater Richmond Partnership’s website (here) and a similar but not completely identical list on the City of Richmond’s website (here).

Browse the awards and bookmark the links for future reference.  Find a few that mean  the most to you and let everyone know how great Richmond is! (and feel free to rub it in to friends that live in cities that ranked below us…)

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How important is biking and walking to you?

If you think biking and walking should be more prominent in Richmond City’s transportation planning, then I encourage you to get out to this and participate!

Received in my email this afternoon:

Department of Planning & Development Review

CITY OF RICHMOND
News Release

Wednesday, September 15, 2010
For Immediate Release

City to Hold Public Forum on Pedestrian Biking and Trails

Richmond, VA – The city of Richmond will hold a public forum on Monday, September 20, from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Carillon in Byrd Park. The forum is being held to encourage input from residents on ways to make biking and walking an integral part of the city’s transportation system.

In May 2010, Mayor Dwight C. Jones established a Pedestrian Bicycling and Trails Planning Commission to provide his administration with advice on ways to make the city more pedestrian friendly. The commission divided into work groups: Economic Development; Public Policy/Legislation; Infrastructure and Physical Design; Grants and Funding; Outreach, Education and Safety; and Metrics and Evaluation. The workgroups have studied the plans and strategies of the city of Richmond, other jurisdictions as well as those of other countries.

On Monday, four of the Commission’s work groups will present some of their recommendations for public consideration. They are: Public Policy/Legislation; Economic Development; Infrastructure and Physical Design; Outreach, Education and Safety.

Residents who are unable to attend the forum can provide input through a survey that will be posted after the public forum on the city’s website at www.Richmondgov.com.

Contact: Tammy Hawley (804) 646-3110
Tammy.Hawley@RichmondGov.com

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Official recommendations on the privatization of ABC stores

Virginia Governor, Bob McDonnell, has been getting a lot of news coverage lately over his push to privatize ABC stores statewide:  RTD from 9/3/10, NBC12 from 8/19/10, Hburgnews.com from 8/26/10, Style Weekly from 6/29/10.

This proposal still has a ways to go and many levels of bureaucracy to push through before it becomes reality, but McDonnell ‘s senior staff members have been studying the issue to make recommendations.  Here are their official findings (the full version), which were released today.  You can find the presentations that were made through this link. (although it doesn’t look like it will stay the top story but for so long)

I pulled out a number of points from the press release that I found to be the most intriguing:

  • 1,000 retail licenses will be auctioned off to the highest bidders
  • The licenses will be broken into three categories: 600 licenses for large establishments such as grocery stores; 150 for smaller establishments such as package stores and wine and beer shops; 250 for convenience stores/retail pharmacies
  • No one company will be allowed more than 25% of licenses within each level
  • 1,000 licenses will still give Virginia 1.8 outlets per 10,000 adults, far below the private state average of 3.8 per 10,000 adults
  • Majority of new license holders will be existing stores; Virginians will primarily see new shelves in retail establishments, not new establishments.
  • 332 licenses will be guaranteed for areas currently served by an existing ABC outlet
  • The additional 668 licenses will be granted based on population density
  • The wholesale side will also be privatized, allowing the Commonwealth to completely focus on law enforcement and regulation of distilled spirits
  • There is no tax increase in the privatization proposal
  • The Commonwealth will also make an additional $33 million on the sale of the ABC warehouse in Richmond and 19 state owned outlets
  • The number of ABC enforcement agents will be increased by 25%
  • The Commonwealth, through the ABC board, will maintain health, safety, law enforcement and marketing regulatory authority over private distilled spirit sales and distribution

Also, the point that has been making the most buzz lately is the idea of a 4% tax on the gross liquor receipts for restaurant operators.  That seems to have been taken out of the recommendations (given the 9th bullet point listed above), unless it’s a matter of semantics and they’ve buried it by not calling it a tax.  I didn’t have time to go through, but I’m sure there will be lots of other people combing through the details of this proposal word for word.

Another point that is of particular interest to me is the sale of the ABC main warehouse.  I wonder who will be listing that? *ahem* Mr. Governor, I’d be happy to take a look at it for you!

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Don’t let them catch you dancing!

Everyone can now rest easy, dancing will no longer be tolerated in the City of Richmond! (Well, when I say “everyone can now rest easy”, I really mean everyone except for those pesky dancers.)  From what I hear, dancing brings about all sorts of immorality so I am relieved that we won’t have dirty dancers parading around making light of the city’s laws. (My research really is confined to movies from the first half of certain movies from the 80’s)

I’m actually a little confused because visitors or transplants to the city are always complaining about how there aren’t many dance clubs here anyways.

Style Weekly has plenty of information in this week’s edition here, including a Q&A follow up session with a representative from the Mayor’s office.

As a tribute to the new City ordinance, here’s a video of some scenes from the movie Footloose:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wROSYW25vhc]

Actually, this ordinance is nothing new here in the Richmond metro area.  Chesterfield and Henrico have been issuing permits (or NOT issuing permits, depending on who you talk to) for a couple of years now.

Here are a few links about the stink from last year about Chesterfield and dance permits:

(thanks to Richmond Good Life’s time-capsule archives for those links!)

Henrico has the same type of ordinance and dance club permits, but I recently had a tenant that had to apply for one and it wasn’t a huge ordeal.

If you’ve run against any of these dance ordinances or know of how it’s handled in other areas, I’d love to hear about your experiences.  Leave a comment!

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More details about the Cities of Service Leadership Grant

As a follow up to my post from a few days ago regarding the Cities of Service Leadership Grant (which you can find here), I wanted to share some more information about it.

This time, the info comes straight from the City of Richmond, via this press release:  “Richmond Awarded Grant to Aid Neighbor-to-Neighbor Initiative” (thanks to @RichmondSprite for bringing this to my attention)

And on an unrelated note: Happy Fourth of July,  everyone!

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Congratulations, Richmond, you’ve just won $200k!

Congrats, Richmond, on being chosen to participate in the second round of cities to be funded $200,000 over two years as part of the Cities of Service! (link to original story — thanks to David Necessary for the tip on Twitter)

What does that mean, exactly?  I’m glad you asked because I just happened to look it up!

Here is the “About Us” page on Cities of Service — and here is the information on the Cities of Service Leadership Grants

To sum it up,

Cities of Service is a bi-partisan coalition of the mayors of large and small cities from across our country who will work together to engage citizens to address the great challenges of our time. Founded in New York City on September 10, the coalition and its member cities will respond to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act’s historic call to action by finding new and innovative ways to harness the power of volunteers to help solve pressing local challenges.

And the grant program is:

The Cities of Service Leadership Grants provide recipient cities with $200,000 over a two-year period to hire a Chief Service Officer, a senior city official dedicated to developing and implementing a citywide plan to increase volunteerism and target volunteers to address their city’s greatest needs.

So I guess the next questions are: 1) When will this CSO be getting started?, and 2) Who will it be?

Does anyone have any observations from seeing this CSO working in any of the cities involved in the first round of funding?  I’d love to hear what has worked and what could be done better.  If we’re going to do this here in Richmond, let’s do it right!

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