It’s been what seems like a long time since I’ve had concrete news of progress to report, but it’s not for lack of work happening here at Float!  I thought perhaps I should catch up anyone who’s interested on the kinds of hoops we’re jumping through.

We have two loan applications in at the bank for the major funding we need, and we’re in a wait-and-see mode.  Ideally we want to complete what’s called an equipment lease to purchase the float tanks themselves — this is something like “rent to own”, where we would borrow the money to buy the tanks using the tanks themselves as collateral.  The obstacle is to convince the bank that the tanks are legitimately resaleable in the event Float (god forbid) can’t pay our bills;  if we can do that the interest rate and terms are excellent.  But right now we’re playing ping-pong answering sceptical questions.  Fingers crossed.

We’ve also started seriously looking at locations.  This is such an exercise in compromise: the space that’s probably our leading contender is just outside Davis Square, but it’s being advertised as office space and we’ll need to talk to the landlord about whether our plans are something they’d be willing to support.  The second contender is in East Somerville just off Broadway and looks great, but there’s a church meeting group upstairs.  Soundproofing away the sound of dancing on our ceiling could be a tall order.  And there’s a third location, a wildcard that might be fantastic, but it’s way too big for us, and we couldn’t afford it unless the landlord is willing to subdivide.  Also, it’s in North Cambridge, and that would mean restarting negotiations with a new city’s Board of Health.

We’re also talking to architects, building contractors, and city planning staff.  Pictures and news when we have something concrete to report.  Fingers crossed that it won’t be long!