When we moved to NC, we had big dreams of purchasing a cute little plot of land and building our home and shop from the ground up. Ideally, a piece of property with a strong creek or stream so Joey could eventually start up our very own hydro-electric plant. We planned to call it SECO (short for Sacco Electric Co.), which was a play-on TECO (Tampa Electric Co.) for all you west coast FL folks out there. Well, after doing lots of research on building up the land, we realized just how expensive it is to start from scratch. Reality is a buzzkill but she keeps us in our place.
With that realization, we started looking for local real estate with pre-existing buildings. In December of 2015, we stumbled upon a warehouse for sale in downtown Marion, one block from Main Street. It wasn’t our ideal situation, but we were determined to keep an open mind since the price was right.
The parking lot was an overgrown asphalt jungle and the property had zero curb appeal. However, as soon as the garage door rolled up and we feasted our eyes on the glorious steel trusses spanning the ceiling, we knew she was the one. We learned quickly that the building used to be Marion’s Builder Supply store but was only being used as storage for the last several years since Lowe’s came to town. We saw so much potential in all the space. The main warehouse was a substantial 5,400 square feet on each level (main level and walk-in/dirt floor basement) and the barn (not as secure or useable) was 12,000 square feet. The lack of greenery was a little disheartening but luckily, in western NC, it is easy to explore nature on a regular basis so we knew we wouldn’t feel deprived.
After countless inspections and meetings with the city, we closed on our property in March of 2016 and started our next chapter of Turtle Labs! We celebrated with several margaritas and a few phone calls to our parents.
