Just a quick update from Tuesday's City Council meeting.
I reiterated the concerns I documented via email and phone conversations as did two very well spoken ladies from the neighborhood. It seems that everyone agrees that the range itself can be made safe - apparently partially due to documentation I provided the City. Comments to Council centered around safety concerns with an increase in ‘gun traffic’ in the area and what could potentially happen in the parking lot and surrounding area.
The key learning for us right now is that we are going to have severely limit what we provide the City and share on Social Media because it's clear that the Bullet Trap owner is reaping the benefits of our hard work and is willing to take extreme measures and spare no expense to monopolize the North Dallas market.
What I can say today is that we are not dead yet. The Bullet Trap’s deal has not closed yet and we are actively pursuing other avenues to provide this much needed service to our McKinney neighbors.
Again, thanks to each and every one of you for your continued thoughts and prayers on our behalf!
As many of you have already heard, there was an approval of an Indoor Gun Range in McKinney yesterday. Unfortunately it was not TripleM. The permit approval was secured by the same individual that owns the Bullet Trap and the Frisco Gun Range.
The approval is for the same location we were attempting to secure for TripleM at Custer and Virginia adjacent to the Home Depot. While I feel very strongly that a gun range can safely be put in this location, based on current operations at the Bullet Trap, I have little confidence that they will sustain the ongoing care and attention needed to ensure the safety of the surrounding areas especially related to lead exposure.
Because my home and my children’s school is in the immediate area, I am working with the City of McKinney to understand what steps they are taking to ensure that the Bullet Trap owners have the proper safety measures in place now and in the future.
I feel we’ll know more details of the City’s audit and review plan by the end of April and whether TripleM will have the opportunity to serve the McKinney community.
Thank you all for your continued support and prayers.
We are still working through property hurdles. We have another 30 days before we'll get them worked out.
Thanks for your support, patience, and prayers as we work to make this dream a reality!
We are still working on a few property hurdles. We're hoping to have them nailed down in the next 2 weeks.
Keep praying and stay tuned!
As you no doubt have noticed, we've taken down the expected opening timeline while we work through the latest set of hurdles.
It's been a tough 2 year battle working to make the range a reality. We've been within a week of closing on a property twice, only to have something fall through at the last minute.
It's an extremely tough economy to start a new business, but we're not giving up on McKinney yet!
We greatly appreciate all the positive feedback and most importantly everyone's patience as we try to make this work.
Keep us in your prayers!
We look forward to good news in 2013!
First off, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for sticking with us while we work through our delays in getting the range up and running.
As you may have noticed, we updated the home page to show a Winter 2012 opening - right now we're hoping for late-Nov / early-Dec.
I'll do my best to keep the blog updated on a monthly basis going forward so you all can stay in the loop on our progress. Once construction starts we'll ensure to post plenty of pictures of our progress.
I can't wait to meet everyone we've been talking with at the range in the a few short months.
We were so excited to be able to run the Run4Cover as a family last weekend. The race benefits a great charity and the girls are getting old enough that we all get to participate together. Also, we had some awesome new TripleM running shirts we were all itching to try out!
The weather was beautiful, we saw lots of friends from church and Madi wound up placing 2nd in her age group! Not only that, the shirts were a big hit and we were able to talk to lots of new friends about TripleM.
Sadly, life is a lot like a 5k and for as fun as the week started we got the wind knocked out of our sails just 5 days later with some bad news on the banking end. It looks like we may be facing another delay in our financing, but not to worry.... we Phillips' don't know the word quit and are determined to keep running until we get to the finish line.
A huge shout-out to all of our investors and friends who are cheering us on during these hard times. We cannot express how vital your encouragement has been and we look forward to seeing you all at the grand opening.
Those of you who've been with us a while know it's been a bit of a goat rodeo trying to get our location nailed down. We've looked at more pieces of land and empty buildings than we could even begin to describe.
Anyway, we found the perfect spot last fall and after a few more twists and turns we just wanted to let you all know we are under contract and will be closed by May (God willing). Our buildout will be a pretty quick process and we just can't wait to start meeting all of you this summer at one of our many opening events!
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