Small Businesses Feel Pinch From Harder Hall Debt
By MANDY SHEETS

SEBRING — While local businesses try to make ends meet without payment for work on Harder Hall, attorneys are still determining how to best handle the bankruptcy case.

Mark Nealis, owner of Nealis Plumbing, estimates between labor and supplies for plumbing at the hotel, he’s out about $16,000.

“It really puts me in a pinch,” Nealis said. “It’s not going to shut me down, but it’s certainly enough to make a negative impact on my business.
That number represents man hours I paid for months ago and supplies I purchased, and now I have no way of making that up.”

Nealis said his company installed new pipes in most of the building and bought bathtubs and other plumbing fixtures. Tub and shower valves purchased for the project are now obsolete because the company has started manufacturing a new model.

“These were bought specifically for the tubs we were going to install there, and now we can’t really use them,” Nealis said. “I don’t know how we will get rid of these.”

Betsy Bagwell, co-owner of Bagwell Lumber Co., said she’s in a similar situation. Bagwell placed a special order for lumber for the renovation project that has been sitting in the store’s back room for months.

“We expected when we bought supplies for them that we would be paid,” Bagwell said. “I don’t understand how they can do that to people, how they can keep ordering supplies when they knew they were going under.”

The $7,500 in unpaid supplies is a debt the small company feels, Bagwell said.

“We are a family-owned business, so that’s a lot of money for us,” Bagwell said. “We are pretty stable, but no one wants to lose thousands of dollars.”

Conley Jahna, owner of Jahna Concrete Inc., said not being paid for his $5,000 of supplies is hurting the whole community.

“The money I and all these other businesses are owed is money that should be circulating in the community,” Jahna said. “This is just a bad situation for everybody. It’s really a shame because that building had a lot of potential.”

Marsha Rydberg, attorney representing the city of Sebring in the case, filed a motion that could allow the city to foreclose on the property, but because bankruptcy cases are highly negotiable, she said she is still unsure if she will seek that outcome during the Feb. 14 hearing. Joran Realty owes the city $5.2 million.
“(The hearing is) still a week away, and a lot could happen in that time,” Rydberg said. “Someone could step forward and make an offer to finish it and that would be great ... We will have to see how this plays out. There are a lot more dots to connect before Feb. 14.”

Rydberg said the city’s interest in the renovations is more than financial.

“The city is not regularly in the business of loaning money, but they undertook this project because of the benefit it would bring to the community,” Rydberg said. “Not only would the historic building be restored, but jobs would be created in the community. The city is still interested in having that proposal fulfilled.”

The court-appointed examiner Soneet Kapila is spending this week collecting depositions from Marc Shenker, owner of Harder Hall, and records custodians of Citibank, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch & Co. before the hearing.

Jim McCollum, a Sebring attorney representing two creditors, said this step means the case is becoming more serious.

“They are seriously looking into this man and what he did financially,” McCollum said. “They want to know where the money was spent and what he might have done.”