Sarasota's Kimsey wages financing fight

Sarasota entrepreneur Rick Kimsey, with a goal to shoot a dose of Starbucks into the urgent care industry, is now Exhibit A in the lending tug-of-war between banks and small businesses.

Kimsey bought franchise development rights for Doctors Express for 16 counties in west and central Florida late last year. The Towson, Md.-based chain provides urgent care for the large segment of patients who fall between a primary care doctor and an emergency room. The chain's mission is to execute its strategy in a uniform way, no matter where the office is located, much like Starbucks.

Kimsey opened his first Doctors Express in Sarasota in January and a second one followed in St. Petersburg in June. Kimsey wants to open at least six more centers by the end of 2011 and he tells Coffee Talk he has sites picked out for some locations. The list includes potential sites in Naples, Fort Myers and Bradenton.

Therein lies the pickle. Kimsey says the financing process has been a bureaucratic bumble. First off, new federal regulations on banks allowed to provide loans under the SBA program went into effect in May, which cut out several institutions Kimsey had worked with. That conflicts with other federal mandates that require the SBA to lend more money, not less.

“You have government entities that have no clue what the other entity is doing,” says Kimsey. “It's ridiculous.”

Plus, even more painful is a 2% fee Kimsey says he's now required to pay on any SBA loans he does receive. So, for the $4.25 million loan he seeks, Kimsey says he will have to pay what he calls a $100,000 tax to the government.

Kimsey plans to plow ahead with growth plans, regardless of the loan hurdles. Another expansion avenue he has looked into is to recruit private equity investors to buy competing urgent care centers and rebrand the units under the Doctors Express name. He also still hopes to obtain financing for the six new Doctors Express sites within a few months.

The early success of the Sarasota Doctors Express gives Kimsey long-term confidence. “There's a definite need for urgent care services,” says Kimsey. “There's a tremendous over-utilization of emergency rooms.”