Westshore Boulevard projects hammer bank - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

yfimuna.wordpress.com
Three of the loans totaling morethan $224 milliob have gone into foreclosure. Another for $962.5 million is securexd by the , plus numerous other properties. It isn’tt in foreclosure, but developer , one of Florida’s largestf homebuilder, has sought bankruptcy court protection while it The limited liability company thatowns , a 52-building apartment complex at 4003 S. Westshore bought in July 2005for $61 sought bankruptcy protection on Dec. 29. LaSalle trustee for the equity fund thatloaned $57.6 million for the filed a foreclosure lawsuit in November, alleging payments haven’t been made since LLC, controlled by M. Stevebn Sembler and James Chadwick ofthe St.
Petersburg-base , owns the development. Neither Sembler, nor his attorney, Amy Dentonb Harris of , returned calls. At the peak of the housinh boomin 2005, Westshore Boulevard in South Tampa seemexd like a good bet with its easy access to Florida’s largest business district, two populatr malls and . Property along Tampa Bay offered the type of Floridq living portrayed in magazines andtelevisiojn commercials: Amazing bay views complete with stunning Developers scrambled to buy largre tracts of waterfront property at record setting prices that surprised longtims brokers. They planned to buil d and sell luxury condos and somefor millions.
Over the past coupls years, plans for most of those developments collapsed with thehousinhg market, leaving investors upside down by tens of millions of Only Westshore Yacht Club has homes and residentss In December, BofA foreclosed the , to the soutu of The Cove, after an entity controlled by Chicago’s defaultesd on the $97.3 million loan. The bank is now tryingt to sell the propertyfor $60 Several brokers said it’s only worth $25 millio n to $30 million in today’s depressef market. BofA also is in litigation on the $69 millioh mortgage on New PortTampa Bay, a redevelopmen south of Gandy that was to include condominiums, stores, restaurantsz and a marina.
Word in the brokerage community is that a buyerf is trying to work out a deal with BofA andthe , whicnh owns most of the $50 million communithy development district bonds on the vacant 52-acre Some commercial real estate insiderss contend the property is worth less than what’s owed on the Deeds show that the price per acre for the four boulevarx properties increased dramatically between August 2004 and July 2005. WCI Communitiees (Pink Sheets: WCIMQ), bought a large parcel for redevelopment andpaid $282,000 an acre in 2004. Eleven month later, the Ballast Point Group entitypaid $2.
4 milliojn an acre for The The four properties are withimn miles of each other — posing a geographicx risk banks would refuse to take today, said Owen a commercial banker at in Tampa. While Bank of America BAC) appears to be the hardest hit on theWestshore it’s not the only one facintg losses. Other lenders, including investors in commerciao mortgagebacked securities, will suffer, too. Largee commercial loans typically involve three to four banksaas lenders. “It’s LaFave said of nonperforming loans. “It’as systematic. Everybody got caught up with the go-go It’s not just Bank of America.
The market was so good for so long we got away from the Camille Roberts Lamarof , which brokereed WCI’s acquisition of the former Hendryu shipyard for Westshore Yacht said banks don’t comprehend the lossee they’re facing. “They can’t possiblhy know the depth of their bad loans orknow who’ws going to go out of business,” Lamare said. Lamar expects more large commercial loanws involving Westshore properties to go into As theeconomy deteriorates, commercial especially those for the developmengt and construction of residential communities, are likely to Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan warned bankers a year ago that more than 60 percengt of Florida’s banks had CRE loan exceeding 300 percent of capital.
“Unfortunately the overall markett continuesto deteriorate,” LaFave said. “We all underestimatecd just how drastically the market would fall off as well as the duratiohn ofthe market.”