ST. PETERSBURG, Florida- Bison Financial Group, Inc., a real estate advisory firm announces the closing of a $12,000,000 loan to acquire a 22.8 acre riverfront development site in downtown Jacksonville, Florida for the eventual construction of a $500 million mixed use project. The site is a stone's throw from Altel Stadium, the home of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars. The lender was a Florida based community bank known more for lending on income properties than land. Bison has closed dozens of loans with this lender since 1997.

According to David Repka of Bison, "We signed the deal up on a Friday, had it inspected 2 business days later, issued a binding commitment the following day and were standing by to close it by the end of the week. The borrower ran into some snags with insurance and other paperwork that dragged the closing to Wednesday - for a grand total of 8 business days. This beat our previous record of 11 days set with this same lender on an apartment complex back in 1999."

Bison represented the borrower, a syndicate of experienced North Florida real estate developers and investors that acquired the property from a long time land owner. "There is incredible excitement building in Downtown Jacksonville as luxury housing, shops, restaurants, galleries & football stadiums replace decaying industrial buildings", said Jared Repka, one of the principals of Bison. The bridge loan has a starting rate based on Prime and gives the borrower enough time to get their entitlements in place to begin building over 800 luxury condos on the site.

Bison advises a network of local, regional & nationwide developers that build projects in Florida and select markets nationwide. Bison funds development/ value-added properties and stabilized income producing properties. The principals of Bison are the Florida Partners for Regional Capital Group, one of the nations leading private, commercial real estate lenders.