In this webinar Kim Kuhle shares the Veterans Victory Fund, which is developing a unique facility in Colorado Springs.

Webinar Highlights

• An overview of the Veterans Victory Housing and Small Business Center, a unique facility catering to veterans.
• Appealing aspects of Colorado Springs, which is experiencing strong population growth.
• How Veterans Victory provides a valuable need to our veterans while providing a return to investors as well.
• Layered incentives beyond Opportunity Zones, including solar.
• How Kim and her family are making a long-term commitment to this project.
• The roadmap for Veterans Victory Centers in locations throughout the U.S.
• Live Q&A with webinar attendees.

Industry Spotlight: Veterans Victory Fund

VVOF is a private-equity real estate QOF. Funds will be used to purchase, construct and renovate a mixed-use property marketed to Veterans, resulting in ADA-accessible, green multifamily apartments, business offices and programs for Veterans that create above-market returns for the investor.

Learn More About Veterans Victory Fund

• Visit VVSBC.com

Webinar Transcript

Jimmy: Up right now is Kim Kuhle with Veterans Victory. Kim, how are you doing today?

Kim: I’m doing well. Thank you.

Jimmy: Excellent, Kim. Well, please, take it away.

Kim: Wonderful. Well, I have a story that has an emotional side because we all love our veterans, but I also have the analytical side. So I would like to encourage everyone to use the side of the brain that they are most comfortable with. And I’ll verbally tell you the emotional story, and then I’ll run the slides for you so that then you can pick up the financial story.

So first, I’ll start out by saying why should anyone invest in Veterans Victory Housing & Small Business Center in Colorado Springs. The easy answer is that we give 15 impacts that are ESG. They’re environmental, they’re governmental, and they’re also socially beneficial. So what we have is a number of veterans literally investing in other veterans with 240 apartments that are very modern and targeted towards 25-year-olds all the way up to 65-year-olds. And then, we have the small business center with 15 business offices.

So you can see here that we are going from $207 per square foot all the way up to $341 per square foot within 2 years of occupancy. So we are really excited to be at the top of the hill, one mile away from the airport in Colorado Springs, one mile away from Amazon, and we’re within four miles of Fort Carson. So I’ll let you go ahead and take a look at our structure here on this page. And then I’ll also talk about our mission.

So the important thing to talk about the emotional side, I’ll just start with Abraham Lincoln. He says, “Honor the soldier and the sailor everywhere who braves for the common good the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.” So Abraham Lincoln set the stage for us, and now, fast forward, we can use the Opportunity Zone to help our veterans.

And why should you invest in Veterans Victory? Well, I have developed the small business entrepreneurial campus because I learned from my father. My father was in the Air Force. He was in the hospital observing my mother who was in the burn ward at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska and he started to have a heart attack. So that memory of two of my family members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder stayed with me. And as a result, I decided to create Veterans Victory.

So it’s very exciting because we have a $67 million project and we have 4 apartment buildings here. We have a 7,000-square-foot clubhouse. We have a monument that my daughter is going to create, a metal, copper, and aluminum monument. And we have the15 small business offices. We’ve already rented 5 of the 15 small business offices, including to a podiatrist. And then, we also have 92 people on the waiting list and these are veterans who have asked to be on the waiting list and they’re going through the application process.

So how can I be sure that Veterans Victory will create a 26.8% internal rate of return? Well, I can be sure about this because I get calls from people all over the United States and they’re saying, “I want to move to Colorado Springs and I want to be on your waiting list.” So when I talked about the impacts, this is a perfect project for big corporations that want to invest in something that is really positive for society. Also, I bring to you something really unique, and that is that I’m your friendly former banker that specializes in Community Reinvestment Act.

So my father always used to say, “Give something free, such as a free cup of coffee to your customer.” And I will give anyone listening to my presentation a free one-page Community Reinvestment Act summary. And that’s a verification report that you can take to your bank and you can get your bank to give you a better deal on your loans and also on investments.

So why am I different? I’m different because I am providing the CRA analysis before various investors and for the banks. Also, I am providing an exit strategy. My family had real estate for the last four generations. And while I do not have a lot of money myself, because I’ve been working in charitable industries and non-profit industries, philanthropy, because we have an inheritance coming, what makes me different is that I will buy you out and I will facilitate the buyout.

So I can provide an example of how a person can invest in Opportunity Zones and also create something really valuable and a source of pride to hand down to the children. And also, in my case, I have…my daughter is actually working in the art centers in all of our Veteran Victories. And then I’ll have my other daughter do some management work. And you already heard about the monument. So we have something really special that we can provide. And what we’re basically doing for our veterans is we’re saying, “Look, when you have that dream and you talk to your other fellow soldiers about the business you’re going to create when you come back to the United States, then our Veterans Victory entrepreneurial campus is the place where you should come.

You should come and visit. You should come and live here and/or rent an office here and we will give you state-of-the-art technology with 20 patents and the fastest broadband speed available in Colorado Springs and the 11 other cities where we’re putting a Veterans Victory. And we will help you do what you love to do.

In particular, if you are a veteran, we will help you get your SBA certification and we will help you combine with other veterans to apply for government bids. Since you have the veteran status, you will win in the bidding war for the wonderful bids that are available now because of the Build Back Better program. We also provide holistic healthy housing, and we have the innovative risk reduction system.

So what I did that is different is I hired accountants, Hancock Dana, and I asked for every tax deduction possible. So we have our Opportunity Zone deductions, but then I also found out how we can use bonus depreciation, accelerated depreciation, Section 179 expensing. Plus, we have the Carbon Footprint Reduction program. So we have green construction and that gives us an extra boost in state and federal tax deductions and incentives.

So, I have been a banker for many years, and I know the programs that I can blend in. Specifically, I’m providing the blending of the PACE financing program with Chris Peterson, a national vendor of PACE financing. I’m able to use long-term financing strategies because my family will be in this fund until 2047. So this saves money for the investor. And you can see here, we have Tesla charging stations, we have the solar roofs on all of our buildings, we have controlled utility monitoring, and we also have the neighborhood lighting that we will be providing through solar energy.

So you can take a look at the PowerPoint and read each of these details carefully when you receive the PowerPoint through Jimmy. And thank you, Jimmy, for this opportunity to speak. And then, I would like to point out that we have four developers, not just one developer. I’m the fund developer. We have experts who we’ve been working together for 35 years providing state-of-the-art technology. And our technology will help us to find, for example, the artificial arm anywhere in the world in the fastest and most effective way. And whatever the veteran needs, we will be able to locate that through our technology because we have the ability to communicate as a clearing house.

So you’ll see here, we control the solar grid, we have the campus services, we have business intelligence, and we have the control of the sensors. We are specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder and physical therapy. We’ll have bankers on-site every week. We’ll have an exchange of e-commerce. We’ll have job placement, startup assistance, and education. I’m grateful because a woman named Kim Lake is going to help me set up a fund for our veteran business owners, and it will be similar to a venture fund. It will be accelerated and funded with Opportunity Zone funds in the hub zone in the Opportunity Zone right here in Colorado Springs.

So, you can see we have a sophisticated organization and we have 12 total locations at this time. Each one has a little bit different nuance. In San Benito, we’re helping first responders. In South Sioux City, our veterans will be owning a non-profit office building, and the non-profits are already lined up and they’ll do a rent-to-own program. In Omaha, we’re teaming up with Burlington Capital, a well-known veteran advocate with many units helping permanent supportive housing for veterans. So we are going to have university partnerships.

In Sioux Falls, we’re doing something totally different and that is single-family housing. And there’s a huge need because the population has grown 25% in the last 10 years. And you can see, we have spots in Jacksonville, Rapid City, and Tucson picked out.

Jimmy: I’m glad you mentioned single-family housing. We had a question about that earlier today, and I didn’t realize you had single-family housing. So thank you for pointing that out. Hey, Kim, sorry to break in, but we are over time by a couple of minutes. I need you to wrap things up, unfortunately. We’ve got one or two questions also if you wanted to field a couple of questions.

Kim: Yes, I was thinking that I was about out of time. So thank you for being so generous with your words. Okay. So how can you help? Well, if you could tell other people about Veterans Victory and our focus on small business development, then that can help a lot of people. Twenty-five percent of all veterans want to start a business. If you would like to know more about CRA verification and how you can work with banks, I’ll be glad to provide that. And then you can receive the PowerPoint at your discretion, and please give us your ideas. And then please note that we are able to provide a 26.8% internal rate of return. Okay, questions.

Jimmy: Fantastic. Well, thanks, Kim. I love your passion for this project. I love this project too. I love that it helps out veterans. I think it’s really well needed. And I think…you know, I don’t know that there is another fund out there that adheres to the congressional intent of the program and what this nation needs than this one does. So thank you for your service in this fund and thank you for being here today. We’ve got time for one question. We’re going a little over, but that’s okay. We’ll make it up. One question is your deck mentioned solar, Kim. Are there any tax incentives associated with the solar piece of this project?

Kim: Yes. In Colorado, there’s a special incentive because the governor is very advanced. Plus, we are bringing in $5 million a year in revenue. So we’re actually able to quadruple dip. We’re getting tax incentives, Opportunity Zone tax benefits, and then we have revenue. And there’s something else. I can’t remember what it is, but…oh, I know. We can buy the equipment for the solar energy collection at incredible discounts because of the enterprise zone status and the benefits from city, county, and state government.

Jimmy: Fantastic. Thanks, Kim. I’m gonna have to cut you loose there, unfortunately. We’ve got a couple of more questions, but I did just post your email address, [email protected]. I’ll post that in the chat. So copy and paste that. If you have a question that Kim didn’t get to, email her directly. She’ll get back to you. Or if you wanna follow up, if you have any questions about how to learn more about the fund, she’d be happy to help I’m sure.

And like Kim mentioned, her deck’s jampacked with a lot of info. We’re gonna make sure we distribute her deck out to everybody later today or tomorrow. We’re gonna get that deck online and actually, we’ll have decks for most of the funds today. Kim, really appreciate you participating with us today. Thank you so much for sharing this opportunity with us.

Kim: Yes. Thank you.