Knowledge Base

The Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) offers a variety of financing products for commercial real estate development and small and medium size business development.

How to Qualify and Underwriting Criteria

• The CIE wants your business to succeed, and will work closely with all borrowers to make sure their business is prepared to handle for debt financing and will be able to pay the debt back. Please use Borrowing 101 as a guide to help you understand the CIE’s underwriting process.

• The CIE examines traditional core attributes of borrowers when making financing decisions like:
  • Collateral
  • Cash flow (capacity to repay)
  • Credit Analysis
  • Character
  • Capital

The Loan Application Process (Link here)

• To start the application process, contact a CIE loan officer at bdc@ura.org or (412) 255-6669.
• There are five key components to the typical application process

Loan application/packaging/underwriting (5-30 days or more depending on the readiness of the borrower)

The loan applicant will work with a BDC loan officer to complete a loan application and provide all of the necessary materials for underwriting

The loan officer will work with management to complete underwriting

If the loan is underwritten with a positive recommendation, the loan officer will package the completed loan application for presentation at BDC’s Business or Real Estate Loan Review Committees.

Loan Review Committee (meets twice monthly for real estate and once monthly for business)

The Loan Review Committees (LRCs) are comprised of local bankers, business consultants, attorneys, contractors and other experts in loan underwriting and business planning. The LRCs provide underwriting and credit analysis consultation to the BDC to help the BDC make sound credit decisions.

The BDC Business LRC meets once per month and the Real Estate LRC meets twice per month. Business loans (ie equipment, working capital, and owner occupied real estate) are presented to the Business LRC. Real Estate loans (ie speculative, passive real estate, etc.) are presented to the Real Estate LRC.

The BDC loan officer presents each loan package to the LRC for review and discussion. The LRC will approve, table, or disapprove each loan package. Tabled loan packages go back to step 1 for further due diligence and underwriting. Approved loan packages are approved for loan commitment.

Loan Commitment (within 2 days of Loan Review Committee approval)

With LRC approval to commit to a loan, the BDC will send a commitment letter outlining the loan commitment and the loan terms (ie loan amount, interest rate, loan term, amortization, disbursement, etc.) and conditions of closing and post-closing to the borrower for their execution.

With the executed commitment letter, the BDC and the borrower work toward closing.

Loan Closing (typically within 30 days of Commitment)

At closing, all of the necessary legal agreements are executed to close the loan and begin disbursing funds. These typically include:

• Loan agreement
• Note agreement
• Security agreement
• Mortgage
• Uniform Commercial Code (UCCs)
• Intercreditor agreement
• Disbursement agreement
• Landlord release of waiver
• Assignment of leases and rents, etc.

• It is important to note that BDC loans typically close with or after all other financing sources are closed.

5. Disbursement of loan funds (day of closing or in scheduled disbursement period)

The disbursement of funds varies from loan to loan. Sometimes all funds are disbursed at closing, sometimes funds are disbursed with appropriate draw requests (ie invoices, AIA statements, construction review by URA engineering and construction staff, etc) and sometimes funds are disbursed at project completion.