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GREENSBORO — Developers who want to rehab the old Southeastern building downtown can't get the financing they need for the $8 million project.

They aren't alone.

Other downtown projects have been caught up in the national credit crunch as well.

Developers Barry Siegal and Willard Tucker had expected to begin work on the Southeastern building in April. Now, their plans could be pushed back until the end of the year.

"We're kind of on hold at the moment," Siegal said this week. "We are on hold in terms of commencing construction. We are not on hold in terms of getting this thing going."

The partners are looking for additional money they can pump into the project to keep it alive.

"It's just another hurdle," said Ed Wolverton, president and CEO of Downtown Greensboro Inc. "It is frustrating. This isn't just a downtown problem."

Wolverton said developers in three other center city projects have been forced to revise their plans because of tightening credit requirements, but he declined to identify the developments. He said they range from small to large.

Another major downtown project that still doesn't have financing is the proposed Murrow Station development, a $42 million complex that would include condos, town houses and office and commercial space.

"We're still working on it," said Chester Brown, president of Brown Investment Properties, one of two developers on the 8.5-acre project at Summit Avenue and Murrow Boulevard. "The banks are just looking for more equity now."

Brown said his project has no timetable.

The rehabilitation of the nine-story Southeastern building, at the northeast corner of Elm and Market streets, will include a combination of apartments, offices and retail space, including a restaurant and nightclub.

The project will return the neoclassical former bank building to its original, 1920s exterior look, including recreating six Doric columns that were removed during a 1939 remodeling.

Siegal said he still thinks the project will work — just not now.

"It is just a reflection of the times we are all in," Siegal said. "Are we discouraged? No. We are determined. ... We have a tremendous investment and it is not doing us any good sitting there right now."

Siegal and Tucker bought the building, once one of the city's most prestigious addresses, in 2005 for $2.2 million.

He said he and Tucker are trying to make their plan work.

One option involves selling the combined 40 percent tax credits that the state and federal government provide developers who rehab old buildings.

Another involves applying for New Markets Tax Credits, which are part of the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000. The program is designed to stimulate investments in commercial real estate and business ventures in low- and moderate-income communities.

"We hope to have the resolution sometime in the late fall," Siegal said. "It takes that long to push the papers."

Asked if selling the building might be a third option, Siegal hedged in his response.

"Selling is always an option," he said. "(But) that is not the plan. It is not the intent. It is not the desire."

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com