Inching Closer to a Chick-Fil-A

Updated this post at 7:20 AM

We filed our final plat on Friday with the county. It is quite a process.

Once the infrastructure work was completed the surveyor returned to prepare a final "as-built" survey. Before that the city ran a TV camera on wheels down the new sanitary sewer line just to make sure everything was as it was supposed to be. That's an interesting thing to watch done in its own right.

The surveyor then prepares the final plat drawing and prints it on "Mylar" which is a kind of plastic sheet. On the right hand side is a whole bunch of places for various signatures and corresponding notary public seals. You have to use a special pen to write on the Mylar. And the notary stamp is special, too. The City had the most places to sign so they got it first and circulated to all the various officials. Then we had to take it to an abstract office for another signature. Then I had to sign and my signature had to be notarized. Then it had to be taken to the County for a signature. Next it had to go back to the surveyor who made a whole bunch of copies - but they are not called copies but originals. (Interesting that you can have multiple originals.) After that it was another trip back to the County (from which we had just come) where we gave them the required copies (er originals) for filing along with a check, of course.

After that we had to take the City a bunch of copies - some of which I guess are originals. It is confusing. Somewhere in there we had to pay taxes, too. I forgot that step - think it was another trip to the County.

Now at the same time all that's going on we had to sign and have notarized a total of 8 different documents which had been previously negotiated and agreed. Some had to be notarized. Some had to have my brother's signature.

Then we drove back (again) to the surveyor's office with the completed and filed Mylar so it could be scanned and stored and turned into a PDF.

Our final stop was the UPS office where we bundled up a bunch of stuff to send to the title company. All those documents are scheduled to be delivered on Monday morning.

Sometime on Monday we have some more documents to sign and pass around back and forth between various lawyers and other assorted names of people I've never met for the most part.

Assuming all that is completed correctly we will have a closing on Monday or maybe Tuesday or sometime. (I hope.) At some point money is supposed to hit our account and at the same time the deed and other assorted documents are to be given to the buyer which is Chick-Fil-A.

It that happens on Monday we'll be just shy of 34 months from the first contact ever made by Chick-Fil-A to us. That was when we had to tell them we had nothing for sale but we might consider a lease. That was because of our promise to Dad. They said they didn't do anything but buy. Then we didn't hear from them for several months - maybe nearly a year.

Then they contacted us again and we began working on a lease deal. After that we eventually worked out a deal so they could buy after Dad's death.

In about 16 more weeks a new Chick-Fil-A will open for business right next to my porch.

There are already people talking about standing out in line all night before the opening because the first so many people apparently get free sandwiches or something for a period of time or some such.