Tight lending threatens preschool expansion

Owners struggling to find a lender

Jason Cambria, (foreground), and wife Hollie, (background), would like to build one, if not two, more area Primrose Schools, but say they're having trouble securing bank financing. Here they are seen with children at the single Dayton-area Primrose School in Centerville.

Chris Stewart/Staff photographer Jason Cambria, (foreground), and wife Hollie, (background), would like to build one, if not two, more area Primrose Schools, but say they're having trouble securing bank financing. Here they are seen with children at the single Dayton-area Primrose School in Centerville.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Limited lending frustrates  Centerville business owners

Kasich wants 100 gigabits per second state network, smarter smartphones
Updated 14 min. ago
Cracker Barrel manager accused of embezzling $2K
New 15 min. ago
Benefit dinner held for girl who died in car accident
Updated 21 min. ago
Wright-Patterson relatively unscathed in Obama defense budget
1:46 p.m.
Dayton Mall shoe store moving
1:00 p.m.
> More headlines

By William Hershey, Columbus Bureau Updated 11:27 AM Monday, February 22, 2010

CENTERVILLE — Jason Cambria is excited about expanding the preschool business he and his wife Hollie started in Centerville in 2006.

They want to build a new Primrose School in nearby Washington Twp., which would put 30 people to work, serve 230 children and eventually tap into the growing Warren County area.

There’s one big problem.

Cambria, 38, has spent about six months visiting a dozen banks and so far nobody has been willing to loan him the $1.5 million he needs to qualify for a federal Small Business Administration program.

“You turn on the ‘Today Show’ and you see the big dilemma in this country is that small businesses are not being able to expand,” said Cambria. “Every so often, you’re the case in point. Until that happens, you don’t pay much attention.”

Cambria is the case in point. The Centerville school he and his wife own already serves 200 children in preschool and after-school programs and has 34 employees. But without the loan, he can’t expand his business and put another 30 people to work.

Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher’s U.S. Senate campaign recently issued a study showing that statewide Small Business Administration loans from 2006-2009 decreased from $604 million to $400 million, a drop of about 34 percent.

In Dayton, loans to small businesses dropped 28 percent.

“There are a lot of businesses that have difficulty when it comes to growing,” said Caitlin Bortolotto Krebs, business development officer for Dayton’s CityWide Development Corporation.

The SBA program the Cambrias want to use for a $3 million expansion requires getting a loan for half the money from a bank or other lender. CityWide Development Corporation would lend another $1.2 million, guaranteed by the SBA, and Cambria would come up with $300,000.

Cambria now is talking with the Dayton Firefighters Federal Credit Union about a loan. Credit union CEO Charlie Plassenthal said the group hasn’t done a business loan like this before, but he’s hopeful.

“This is a totally different animal,” said Cambria. “And I am definitely a guinea pig.”

Share this article