Thursday, April 24, 2008

McAllister Ranch developer defaults on $235 million loan

From the Bakersfield Californian:

The developer behind southwest Bakersfield’s planned McAllister Ranch golf course community has defaulted on a $235 million loan against the property, the latest in a series of signs suggesting the project may be in financial distress.

The planned 6,000-home neighborhood near Panama Lane and South Allen Road is also beset by lawsuits and legal filings alleging unpaid construction bills.

A default notice recorded Tuesday shows Irvine-based developer SunCal Cos. owes more than $4 million in late payments to lender Lehman Commercial Paper Inc., a New Jersey-based commercial money market dealer.

The filing is the first legal step in the foreclosure process, which could result in the property being repossessed if SunCal fails to right the debt. The notice lists the borrower as LBREP/L SunCal McAllister Ranch LLC, the affiliate company formed by SunCal for the McAllister Ranch project.

The 2,070-acre site already features a Greg Norman-designed golf course and partially built clubhouse. An artificial lake and parks are also in the master plan, company ads state.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Are they renting the clubhouse out for weddings? Or can you use the surrounding land to set world speed records?

Bakersfield Bubble said...

LMFAO!!!

Rob Dawg said...

FYI Lehman Commercial Paper Inc. was involved in the Enron debacle too.

Tyrone said...

Damn subprime borrowers!

BWAHAHAHA

OtherSideofBellCurve said...

You know what's sad? I personally knew a guy who left a secure job to go and work for this company in late 2005. I told him my opinion that the project seemed a little ambitious considering things may end up crashing soon. He wasn't concerned at all. Didn't believe that it was going to crash. It seemed so obvious to me, then again I wasn't in the industry so I guess I could see the forest through the trees.

BKrazy said...

"It seemed so obvious to me, then again I wasn't in the industry so I guess I could see the forest through the trees."

-So true osotbc.
Nobody could put the cool aid down long enough to see the writing on the wall.

hankmeister said...

With any luck part of the land will be turned over to the nature conservancy (ala san emidio). We really don't need that much excess supply of vacant lots in this market holding prices down. Economics is after all the allocation of finite resources.

AnalysisGuy said...

LA tent cities are springing up thanks to foreclosures...

BBC

Realestateslasher said...

Can we at least use the golf course