Complaint Review: Village On Main-Duane Phillips-Waterford Plaza Development-Oak Properties Co.-Phillips Construction

My husband a proud and successful Chiropractic physician in practice for 15 years at the time had came to a point that he no longer wanted to throw his money away with renting. He was ready to invest and hopefully find somewhere he could own.

So in the summer of 2003 we started to look at properties and found ourselves searching in the South Tulsa region. We came across some land out at 101st and Sheridan; we did our research and found our best bet was to speak with Mr. Franklin whom owned the Franklin Plaza next to the land for sale.

This is when we were introduced to Duane Phillips; he was the actual developer of Mr. Franklins building. Mr. Franklins building was around the sq. footage we were looking to own or possibly build which was around 7,500 sq. ft. We thought that size and no larger than 10k sq. feet would be perfect, that would leave 2,500 to 3,000 sq. feet for us and the rest we could lease out. We could build equity and a possible retirement with a building this size.

At one point Mr. Franklin even offered to sell his building to us hind site that is exactly what we should have done. But by this time Duane Phillips had already had us convinced and excited about building and starting from the ground up.

By fall 2003 we had looked at several pieces of land, one I remember we could have bought for 25k if only we would have known. So we get a call from a good friend of ours who at the time was in the process of building his own gym, and guess who was building it Duane Phillips, our friend suggested that we check out the remaining piece of land that he didn't purchase and see if it might work for us. October 2003 we put our first 10k down on the land at 91st and Sheridan, we were ecstatic. The property was on the market for $750,000.00.

At this point we had to get serious and show and have proof to a bank that this land was worth building something on. In November 2003, we had drawings made up, Joel Slaughter of Phillips Slaughter and Rose came to our office and I told him a vision of what I wanted. Joel did a perfect job, we loved the drawings. We paid Phillips Slaughter and Rose $5,000.00 for the drawings. However I should say, we were convinced that 17,000 sq. feet would profit much more that 10,000 sq. feet, Duane felt 10k feet is not even worth the time or energy, plus he had us convinced the monies don't change that much at that point.

January 2004, we were having dinner with our friends Robert and Michelle, when it came up about not having a name for our shopping center. So Michelle had a great idea and pulled out all her and Roberts travel books of all the places they have lived and we just started scanning through all the great cities of the world. I told her to find Ireland; it would only make since to find an Irish name, since my husband is mainly Irish and some Swedish. We came across Waterford, that was it, The Waterford Plaza. We called Duane first thing Monday, told him we named our shopping center, we went to quick prints, had a packet made and bond together, with drawings of Waterford Plaza, a description inside of stats, footings and future letter of intents. We had at least 50 packets made up to present not only to banks but to future tenants.

In April 2004, we had to pay down another $25K to secure the land, since we hadn't found anyone to fund the project. Both my husband and I started getting a bit nervous due to the funds at this time was being pulled from his retirement and told Duane Phillips we're thinking about backing out but Duane convinced us we would find someone to fund this project. I remember him telling us, its only money you need to gamble to win. By June 2004 we had liquidated our retirement, putting all our trust into Duane Phillips. June 2004, Duane said he had a banker that owed him a favor and he is willing to take a look at our Shopping Center, the banker wanted a $1K for a drive by appraisal, we called Duane and said No Morewe just need to take the hint, its not going to happen, I remember him saying, What is another $1K at this point, so we agreed only for the deal to be turned down again.

We finally stumbled upon a banker at Spirit bank that was willing to do the deal the big deal was, the bankers did not feel South Tulsa was growing fast enough to see a shopping center of our design and style go in and profit. Please stay with me; you will be shocked in the end.

So July 2004, we put down another $15K until the loan closed, at this point we thought we could possibly split the land up, keep part of it and sell the other half. We closed on the Land August of 2004 at a borrowed amount of $491,782.55, less $253,620.63, Duane briefly loaned us $238,620.63 in order to close the deal.but monies was never exchanged at the bank just a signature because he wanted to build this shopping center so bad.he said he would do anything to get this off the ground because a shopping center of this kind could get him a lot of deals, the remaining amount of $15,000.00 was money we had already put down to hold the land. Duane said soon as the other loan is closed and the land is rolled over to the actual Waterford Plaza Shopping Center loan we can pay him back with those funds, however take note he never paid that money to the bank it was only a signature, he had a deal worked out with the banker to roll more deals into the bank, to make the bank money. In August we paid Phillips Slaughter and Rose another $21,250.00 for more thorough plans to present to the bank.

The banks wanted at least half the shopping center full before they would consider the deal. So between 2003 and 2005, we had done all the foot trying to get letter of intents we spoke with the following companies for possible future tenants: Under the Sun, Panera Bread, Camilles, Advance Dance Studio, Starbucks, Off the Grill, New Balance, Ricks Cafe, Phillips Slaughter and Rose, Cafe Cubana, Nordaggios Coffee house, Seigi Sausage, Wine and Spirits, A nail Salon, and Emerge Medical Day Spa. Six of those companies either signed a lease proposal or a letter of intent.

By April 2005, spirit bank was convinced we had a great idea along with a great shopping center, however again Duane changed the numbers on us once again, convincing us that in order to get a good return on our money we need to increase it to 28,500 sq. ft. We told Duane we had no more money to give, we cannot afford to go larger; we liquidated out everything, not to mention the business we have lost because we have focused on this project so heavy. Duane said it can be done, so again we put our faith into him. Since we had nothing left to liquidate, Duane said he would come in as a main investor and his partners Joel Slaughter and Paul Rose that left us at a 5% ownership, started out sole owners and now were pushed to 5%. Joel and Paul never put hard cash down; their investment was considered their time spent, hind sight was very little.

May 2005, we broke ground and Duane promised no later than Nov/Dec 2005 we would be in our new office. August 2005 Footings were put in. Duane started working with a real-estate company by the name of Chinowath and Cohen; they were possibly interested in leasing space and also wanted to list the property, it we were to sell. December 2005, not moved in, our office at this point was loosing a lot of business due to advertising in the new location. I was also pregnant and under a lot of stress due to all our monies being tied up in this project that was being handled by Duane and nervous, I didn't want us to go over the allotted time the bank gave us to build it, plus Duane said it looks as though he is going to go over budget therefore there wont be any extra money to build out our space.

At this time I started investigating and talking to other developers about the delays and concerns I had and found out that Duane is the last person I should trust. They told me with him being the developer, the builder and the construction company, that he is floating monies and probably showing inflamed numbers to pocket more monies for other projects. Duane presented an inflamed amount of $125,000.00 to do our build out. Our build out was suppose to be included, especially with all the monies we put down and the fact the bank loaned us $3.6million dollars to build the shopping center. Duane told us, yes the bank loaned us $3.6million dollars but we need more, steel is going up etc..there was always some type of story in why he needed more money. Duane was really good at convincing us that he had everything under control, he never had stats or numbers to show us when we asked to see documentation to see where all the monies were being spent. We later found out that our loan and monies is what funded his project for the infertility clinic, and several of the million dollar homes he was building.

January 2006 I became extremely stressed, pregnant and due the 11th, and Duane breathing down my neck needing more money for our build out. Finally, my doctor said no more, the stress is affecting you and the baby, turn off all phones and tell him to leave you alone. Finally, almost four weeks late and delivered by C-section, due to all the stress, our son was born along with $20K in medical bills.

April 2006, met with Duane at Java Daves coffee house to go over more numbers and again I told him, it was not our fault you went over budget. Our build out was suppose to be included; finally he said he would make it work and we would be in no later than June 1st. Our foundation was poured and then Chinowath and Cohens foundation was poured.

May 2006 I met with Joel Slaughter at the Shopping Center to go over awning colors and I presented him our sign to see if he liked it. Joel thought it looked great, said he liked the gold color with the smooth lines. May 2006 Chinowath and Cohens sign goes up, which was a little crazy we thought, we kept asking Duane Chinowath and Cohens build out isn't going to be done before ours and the answer every time was no. July 2006 Chinowath and Cohen moved in, we were so ma, Duane's excuse was Chinowath and Cohen has straight walls and yours are angled and therefore that takes longer. I remember telling him, we started and funded this project; it should have been priority to get us in before anyone else. We found out later that Chinowath and Cohen were giving him huge kick backs in turn they get to lease a spot at the Waterford Plaza.

June 2006 Duane asked if we could borrow money from our parents for our build-out and we said no, he said then he won't build it out, we are being unacceptable. I remember driving to the office one day with my new baby in the back, I called Duane to see if we can get together and find out the businesses he uses, so I can choose carpet, paint, tiles etc...And he immediately started cursing at me...calling me this name and that name, saying I wanted to put $3K in a bathroom, I even offered to paint the office myself and stain the wood myself just to cut cost.

Bills started piling up, we were loosing business left and right, the good news was, we were getting tons of calls for our new location but we weren't there yet and I was slipping into post partum depression, between being a new mom and not having the funds to pay our bills, we were at our ends wits. At this time I had tried so many times and asked for numbers, documentations, so we could see where all the monies were going but Duane wouldn't find anytime and would tell me every time were short money, but I would say, how?, where?, but nothing.

Our office is still not built out, we were panicking but Duane was too busy to be concerned since he had all these other projects going now. Duane came to us and said the only way he could do our build out was to use our invested interest and the remaining amount we would put in a side note for us to pay out to him, at this point we were in the devils hands. He said if we don't do it then we don't get the space, I asked what ever happened to us being the owners and he told us that our opinion and invested interest doesn't matter..the only thing that matters is the money we give him. The only deal he would work is using our invested interest for the build out and then pay him on the side for the remaining part of the build out, Duane said once the monies are paid back or if the shopping center sold, we would make our return and he would be paid in full, sounded a little shady to me, not to mention we still at this point had seen no stats or numbers.

August 2006, Duane called and begged for us to stay at our current location, and he would even pay for Septembers rent of our old location if we stayed, he needed us to hold off moving. We told him we put in our notice and we have no where to go, plus we scheduled to have our x-ray equipment moved the week before Labor Day weekend. He said the flooring isn't done, hold x-ray movers off, he would pay the overture amount for working on a holiday weekend (which he still hasn't paid HP X-Ray).

Labor Day weekend we move in, ceiling tiles were not all in because the electricians were still up in the ceiling; we only had one bathroom operating. We did not have electrical or plumbing permits, and we did not have occupancy permits. Duane asked us, if a supervisor or city official comes by, if we could lie and say we are not operating our business, that we are only training our staff. The Remaining month of September we were asked to take Wednesdays off, so the construction crew could finish up our space, so we lost more money and time due to that, not to mention the patients that would not come in because of the fumes and wood dust.

Our Sign was still not up at this time, so we had to buy a banner in August to show where we are located. This is when Chinowath and Cohen stuck their noses into it, they wanted us to change our color, our size and they thought our name took away from the Plaza. Joel and Paul came over to argue the point and had to remind Joel that he had seen these letters way before Chinowath and Cohen had their sign up and plus this is our name and that is how we present our Clinic. They said as long as they disapprove then the sign wont go up because they have more invested in Waterford Plaza. In all actuality they didn't have any monies involved, just time spent on blue printswe were so pissed off, they were trying so hard to push us out, they even said if you don't like what we say about your sign then take your name off the note. I thought how in the world, they wouldn't have this project if it wasn't for us, but the three guys (Phillips, Slaughter and Rose) stuck strong together, I just wondered what kind of money is Duane paying them to try to push us out.

So we filed to go to mediation because we couldn't take the childish behaviors any longer, we wanted our sign up, it is how our patients know us and we are again loosing too much money. At this point we had to go to my husband's parents and see if they would consider co-signing a loan so we could breathe, it was utterly embarrassing but we had no choice, Duane had taken all our retirement and now they are trying to push us out of our investment.

January 19th 2007 went to mediation, he said, she said went on. They said we haven't paid any rent, which at that point we hadn't, it was the leverage we had to get our build out completed, which as of today still isn't done, plus we still hadn't got our sign. Also financially, we hadn't hit a point that we could afford the rent due to being drug under and stomped on, plus Duane was estimating our lease was going to be around $4K plus cam. We told him it was never suppose to be that much for our lease, he said if we didn't like it we can get out. So Joel, Paul and Duane made us out as these horrible people that don't pay our rent, at this point principle was coming due on the property and Duane wanted us to pay it plus our rent, plus all our back rent, plus our build out we owed him. I asked what the hell happened to all the monies you were loaned, and where are the numbers, the stats we want proof of where the money went and I remember them just smiling.

We did not over spend on the project, we started the project, we did not extend the footage, we were happy with the 17k sq feet. Between our marriage in shambles, to not getting out of bed because I cried through out the night trying to figure out how we will ever financially going to be on top again because before we met Duane Phillips we had no debt, we had retirement, we had equity in our home, and we had a free line of credit, completely debt free. Duane Phillips took all our sanitity and squashed our hopes and dreams.

I remember I turned to my husband, his eyes once full of hope, he had been beaten down by a crook and at that time we turned to the mediator and said we want out after five hours of complete hell with the three guys that cared nothing about our hopes, dreams and money we invested. They would comp our rent from September to December minus some funds here and there, they gave us some credit towards rent due to getting tenants to sign a lease, so our lease would begin January 2007, we would loose our interest in the property but we would still owe our build-out to Duane.

We got completely screwed and the funny part is it was never about the sign come to find out, in the end they said oh and you can have your sign just the way you want it.

I recalled just recently a phone call that took place back around November 2006, we had heard through the grapevine that the Waterford Plaza sold, so my husband called Duane to ask about it and Duane called back yelling, commenting that he can sell the property if he wants, we have no say. I grabbed the phone from my husband and started yelling back at Duane, that we were not attacking him, we just wanted to know. Supposedly it was a company out of town in a different state; this was right around the time of the mediation.

Now...the good stuff, I truly feel this was pre-meditated, they had their minds made up, they wanted us out and they were going to cause as much havoc and stress as they could and they succeeded.

The shopping center sold June 21st, 2007, guess for how much $6.25 Million dollars. You tell me this was not pre-meditated? Yes, we sold out in January, but we know how Duane works, he had this company all that time, he knew he was going to sell it. It takes too long with paperwork to just sell a shopping center within 30 days, it just can't happen. He scams his way in and manipulates everything he can and that is exactly what he did with us. Check out the MFE online Calif. Investors Pay $6.25M for Tulsa's Waterford Plaza it is a write up by Kirby Lee Davis. It would have never happened if we didn't make it happen, we pushed, we got excited, we had high hopes. Look at that number and the bankers told us that South Tulsa would never generate a Shopping Center like the one we started only to loose to a crook like Duane Phillips.

Shannon

NOTES ADDED AFTER THE LETTER WAS WRITTEN IN 2007 AND POSTED ONTO RIPOFF.COM

Duane couldn't even give us a K-1 to file our taxes to show losses, he said he uses a different tax person every year..when we called an IRS agent to talk about this, the agent thought that was seriously wrong and that he was going to do some checking. Right now as of 2009 Duane Phillips is under investigation due to him not giving us the K-1, which in turn has put us in more debt.

We also found out later through our attorney that the infertility clinic that Duane built out hired the attorney we use to sue Duane for the same thing, scamming people out of their money. I'm not sure whatever came of that. Our attorney said we definitely have a case if we did want to sue but if we did it would probably take around $50k and we had no monies left.
It is crazy that all of this started in 2003 and is still caring on. The California investors have increased our rent to California Prices, almost $6k a month including cam (cam covers maintenance) you have to scream to get any maintenance done. The funny thing is Duane Phillips is the manager of the property, a little fishy, I guess another way he can steal money from people. He sends the California owner invoices for work that is never completed, like removing ice, cleaning windows, etc..I know this because I call California and tell them we need ice removed, and they tell me it was already done, or I'm having electrical problems, we end up fixing all of it ourselves. The Day Spa in our shopping center has had their share of problems, in fact he scammed them on a lot of stuff, they can't wait to be gone. Well we are moving this weekend, we are sad but excited at the same time..hopefully it will be a fresh start, a new beginning.

You ask why did I send this, well I had seen where Duane Phillips is owner/ developer of The Village on Main in Jenks Oklahoma that is costing more than $60 million to build, WowI wonder who he screwed to get that. He never had any projects bigger than the Waterford Plaza before meeting usHe used our money that we borrowed from Spirit bank to buy up the properties that the now The Village on Main is going. Again this man is a snake, he is Lucifer, and he takes from everyone..as long as he ends up on top that is all that matters. Let me remind you our original loan was for $3.6 million, he sold it for $6.25 million and said he did not profit one dime. The shopping center was cheaply made..trust me he did not build it for more than $6.25 million.

I'm in the middle of writing a book on How not to get ripped off by a Contractor.maybe I should have my first signing at The Village on Main..I just had a thought..maybe I can get Michael Moore to do a documentary on being ripped off by Contractors, we can go around get bids and watch them all lie through their teethor maybe we can send fake people in, seeming interested in a space at The Village on Main..and see all the different stories we get..oh, I forgot to mention Chinowath and Cohen are the real-estate agents listing the property and Spirit bank, the bank that loaned us our money is funding the project. It is crazy how much money is being swindled between all these companiesall snakes.
More to come!!!

Shannon
Tulsa, Oklahoma
U.S.A.