Program Description

The St. Croix County Business Loan Fund is a flexible source of supplemental financing for businesses expanding or locating in St. Croix County. Its purpose is to encourage the creation of quality jobs and to increase the tax base. The Business Loan Fund participates in loans with private lenders to qualified borrowers.

Eligibility

To be eligible, a business must:

• Be located within St. Croix County or propose to locate within the County;
• Create and retain jobs with at least 51% made available to low and moderate income (LMI) persons. This can be met by posting job openings with the local Wisconsin Job Service office;
• Demonstrate that it can repay the loan.
• Eligible activities include:
  • Acquisition of equipment, machinery, furniture and fixtures;
  • Land and building acquisition;
  • New building construction or building renovation;
  • Site improvements;
  • New working capital

Finance Terms and Conditions

• Below market interest rates which may be fixed for the term of the loan.
• Deferrals of principal and/or interest payments may be allowed for a brief period of time.
• Terms can be up to seven years on working capital loans, the life of the asset on machinery and equipment, and up to 15 years on real estate
• Collateral is required. Examples include first lien, subordinated mortgage, or purchase money security interest.

Restrictions

The project must include an amount of private funds (cash downpayment and bank loan(s)) equal to the amount borrowed from the St. Croix County Business Loan Fund.

Job creation is required with a maximum of $20,000 of St. Croix County loan funds for every full-time job created.

Application Procedures

An interested business should work with their bank and submit an application to the St. Croix Economic Development Corporation Loan Review Committee.

If approved by the loan committee, St. Croix County will enter into a loan participation agreement with the Borrower's private lender who will loan the funds to the business and service the participation loan.

Contact

William Rubin
St. Croix Economic Development Corporation
1101 Carmichael Road, Hudson, WI 54016
phone: 715-381-4383
email: bill@stcroixedc.com