Help with Mixed Use Retail/Residential Opportunity

[Will Westlund]

Apologies up front: this post is a bit lengthy. I truly appreciate your insight!

I would like to get some opinions on a Mixed Use Commercial/Residential property I'm looking at. There's several layers to this, so I'll try and be specific. First, about me. I'm new to REI, but I'm picking it up as fast as I can. I currently do not own any rental property, and have not made any deals YET! I'm also a Veteran, so keep that in mind for later.

About the property: It is a Class C Mixed Use building in the heart of downtown La Crosse, WI, which gets excellent vehicle/foot traffic. It has 2 above grade stories and a basement, all of which are 6,300 sq/ft. The 1st story has one tenant, a locally owned and operated clothing store under lease through 2019, that caters to the younger college aged crowd that attend the 2 local colleges. Aside from that tenant, the rest of the building is in bare shell condition. The 2nd story has already had renderings drawn up for residential units. I have no idea what I would do with the basement space. I envision two additional retail spaces on the 1st story, one of which would be a paper/scrapbooking store operated by my wife. The asking price is $700,000.

Now, having not completed a deal to date, I sense that I am wading into the deep end here. I'm thinking that the combination of Veteran/Woman business owner would afford us the opportunity for some creative financing options. I also realize that we're technically talking about the funding of two different things (a multi use property and a retail small business), so even though we'd be 50/50 owners on both, I'm not sure the financing could cover both.

Thoughts?