Sandra Anderson Groat's business woes
It was sad to hear that Sandra Anderson Groat’s home building business is dissolving in the face of rising debts and declining revenues.
The city councilwoman and two-time mayor pro tem has been known over the years for finding a viable market where few other local builders dared venture: southeast Greensboro.
Now it is more fashionable -- but still considered risky -- to build middle-class communities on the other side of the tracks.
Eight years ago Sandra gave me a tour of some of her communities -- tasteful split-levels and brick-and-wood tract homes with two-car garages and neatly manicured lawns. She delighted in telling me who lived where; she knew it all by heart. In one community on the edge of downtown she pointed out a house where they’d found a body right before a closing. Minutes later, she showed me that same community’s breathtaking view of the downtown skyline. One of the best anywhere in the city.
Like those communities, she built her company from the ground up, and in the process established good will throughout the city.
“After considerable consideration,” a statement by her attorney to creditors read last week, ”it has been determined that it is in the best interest of the Company and its creditors for it to initiate a wind-down process of its business affairs.”
What that all means, in lawyer-speak, is that a struggling company is saying no mas in the midst of the subprime crash and a terrible local real estate market.
Too bad for Sandra Anderson Builders Inc. She and her family company left their marks on Greensboro.