Foreclosure Auction

A large portion of a new-home project in Harford County is scheduled for foreclosure auction next month, an apparent victim of the sharp slowdown in the housing market that has hurt builders across the country. Lenders filed to foreclose on the undeveloped part of the upscale Greenway Farm, next to Bulle Rock golf course in Havre de Grace, after its owner fell into default. It's part of a wave of foreclosures that has hit developers as well as homeowners, particularly in the suburbs and exurbs.

Peerce's Plantation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday, hours before a scheduled foreclosure auction that would have added it to the list of area restaurants to have closed in the last few months.The restaurant's lawyer said he anticipates that the court will allow the 62-year-old picturesque restaurant to continue operating while undergoing reorganization."To employees and customers it is business as usual," said Lawrence Yumkas, partner with Rosenberg, Proutt, Funk & Greenberg LLP of Baltimore.

A foreclosure auction of the Summerwoods townhouse development in Owings Mills was canceled yesterday after a group of unsecured contractors and suppliers filed two involuntary bankruptcy petitions in federal bankruptcy court against Manor Builders Inc. and Summerwoods One LLC, the owners of the project.It was a strategic move by 18 contractors and suppliers to stop the auction of the partially completed 64-unit development, according to lead attorney William M. Rudow, who represents Number One Supply Corp.

CS First Boston and a Phoenix investment firm have teamed up to acquire the debt on the downtown NationsBank Center II, a move eventually expected to give the group control of the eight-story office building."

Provident Bank of Maryland has filed a foreclosure lawsuit against the owner of the Equitable Bank Center II in an attempt to auction the eight-story, downtown project next month to satisfy outstanding debt.The bank's action, taken against a partnership controlled by Ackerman & Co., results from the Atlanta-based developer's failure to repay a $1.45 million loan dating to September 1989, according to documents filed in Baltimore Circuit Court."Their loan has matured, and has not been repaid," said Richard J. Oppitz Jr., a Provident managing director.

The Washington company that owns the mortgage on the Colonnade hotel and condominium bought most of the complex at a foreclosure auction yesterday for $4.2 million. Only three of the building's nine remaining condominiums sold to third-party buyers.The complex was put up for auction after a partnership led by developer Richard Rymland defaulted on a $16 million mortgage on the West University Parkway property in Baltimore. Marine Midland Bank of Buffalo, N.Y., sold the loan to an affiliate of Washington-based Bresler & Reiner Inc., a real estate development company, for $10 million.

What was once a neglected, arson-damaged, old Ellicott City school building has been renovated into 20 Jacuzzi-equipped, "luxury" condominiums that will be auctioned Sunday.The former Ellicott City Elementary School, a granite, castle-like building, has been bought and sold frequently in the past decade by developers who failed to complete renovation and development plans. The Brightwater Group Inc. purchased the property at a foreclosure auction last summer and plans to complete the project, known as the Greystone development.

The old Southern Hotel, a key part of the site on which the Trammel Crow Co. had announced plans to build the largest office tower in Baltimore, has been scheduled for foreclosure auction on April 17.Steve Fox, who is handling the sale for Michael Fox Auctioneers Inc., said an ad in today's Wall Street Journal was the first notice of the scheduled sale of the building at Light and Redwood streets, directly across from the Maryland National Bank Building.The...

A court order signed less than two hours before a scheduled foreclosure auction has preserved the homes of Margaret Murray and her 83-year-old mother for at least 40 days.Murray is one of hundreds of people who obtained consumer loans at high rates through Albert S. Blank, an oft-convicted mortgage broker who declared bankruptcy in 1983 after a state investigation into his activities. Her mother, Beulah Stickles, cosigned the loan.An auction, scheduled for 11 a.m. yesterday, was delayed by Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge J. William Hinkel until he has time to schedule a full hearing on a request to stop the sales.

Harford developer Steven R. Hankins said he averted a foreclosure auction on three of his holdings, including his 283-acre farm estate east of Bel Air, by paying the balance on the mortgage on the properties.The estate, the Singer Square Shopping Center and a vacant house in Bel Air were to go on the auction block Thursday. The auction was canceled on Oct. 5 after Hankins made the mortgage payment, said Paul Cooper of Alex Cooper Auctioneers Inc. in Towson, the auctioneer hired for the sale.

Monday's scheduled foreclosure auction of the Senator Theatre has been canceled, as city officials work on plans to acquire the 70-year-old North Baltimore landmark. C. Larry Hofmeister, an attorney representing mortgage holder 1st Mariner Bank, said Tuesday that there are no plans to reschedule the auction at this time. Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon announced Saturday that the city, which is the guarantor on $600,000 of the Senator's $950,000 mortgage, would seek to purchase the mortgage from 1st Mariner.

The Senator Theatre stopped selling tickets Sunday night, as owner Tom Kiefaber unexpectedly closed the financially troubled movie house. Kiefaber said a plan to preserve the building's interior, however well-intentioned, contributed to his decision to stop showing first-run films. The proposal, by the city's Commission for Historic and Architectural Preservation, would severely restrict any structural changes that could be made to the Senator's interior. In the long term, Kiefaber said yesterday, that would affect the building's value by limiting a prospective buyer's options.

Senator Theatre owner Tom Kiefaber is "months" behind in loan payments to 1st Mariner Bank, the bank's chairman and chief executive confirmed yesterday. And with federal regulators pressuring the bank to get its own fiscal house in order, officials there had little choice but to call the loan and schedule a foreclosure auction. "The guy's in arrears big-time," Ed Hale said. "He hasn't paid for months." With the likelihood of a mid-April foreclosure auction looming, potential bidders for the Senator, a North Baltimore landmark since 1939, have started to surface.

He buzzed around like a fly behind a windowpane. He could see daylight but no obvious way to break through or go around. He was frantic, panicked. His house was in foreclosure, and in a few minutes it would go on the auction block. Pacing and smoking outside the hulking Baltimore County Courthouse in Towson, 47-year-old Andre Green pleaded his case with just about everyone he saw on the concrete steps. "I'm here to stop this sale!" he declared to auctioneer Ron Osher. Green waved a last-minute agreement with GMAC that would let him pay the lender $1,250 a month - and keep his late mother's brick rancher on a quiet street near Reisterstown Road Plaza.

Just days before a 140-year-old church in West Baltimore was destroyed by fire, the nonprofit corporation that owns it was twice threatened with foreclosure - on both the historic house of worship and a separate 9-acre plot purchased in 2002. In the aftermath of Tuesday's five-alarm fire, Bishop Oscar E. Brown of First Mount Olive Free Will Baptist Church has raised the spirits of thousands of followers by announcing that the church's insurance company has committed to pay out $4 million - enough to pay off their debts.

Caught by the slumping housing market, a large swath of a new-home development in Harford County went to foreclosure auction yesterday and was bought back by the lenders - for $7 million less than what was owed. The lenders, a group of local investors who were the previous owners of that Havre de Grace property, outbid at least one other party to regain the 85 acres that make up phases two and three of Greenway Farm. Their attorney said they plan to move forward with the development, which sits directly to the east of the Bulle Rock Golf Course.

A large portion of a new-home project in Harford County is scheduled for foreclosure auction next month, an apparent victim of the sharp slowdown in the housing market that has hurt builders across the country. Lenders filed to foreclose on the undeveloped part of the upscale Greenway Farm, next to Bulle Rock golf course in Havre de Grace, after its owner fell into default. It's part of a wave of foreclosures that has hit developers as well as homeowners, particularly in the suburbs and exurbs.

If Tom Kiefaber loses his Senator Theatre on Wednesday, the day the revered art deco movie house is slated for a foreclosure auction, it would mark the closing chapter in a two-decade odyssey filled with equal parts Hollywood glamour and backroom sniping. The Senator under Kiefaber's watch has been a saga of mounting debt and last-minute bailouts, of political deal-making and business hardball - played against a backdrop of the last of Baltimore's grand movie palaces. But whatever happens this week, many agree that if Kiefebar loses the Senator, it will not be because he has not fought hard enough.

Even on a frigid day like yesterday, the parking lot was full at Belvedere Square and the market was buzzing with customers. Melanee Stroovman and Randy Cornish, colleagues who work in Mount Washington but come to the market nearly every day for lunch, were among the patrons warming themselves with soup from Atwater's soup counter and bakery. "Whenever we come in, especially during the week ... these tables are always full," Stroovman said. Indeed, Belvedere Square in North Baltimore has seen a resurgence in recent years.

The Baltimore Travel Plaza, an East Baltimore hotel and conference center that includes a Greyhound bus station, is scheduled for foreclosure auction next month. The 9.6-acre O'Donnell Street site - which includes a 175-room Best Western Hotel and Conference Center, food court, restaurant, gift shop and bus terminal - is to be sold Feb. 3 in front of Baltimore Circuit Court. The lender is owed $9.6 million, according to court records. Shaffin Jetha, a minority owner in the property, said yesterday that he hoped to avoid the sale by renegotiating a mortgage payment schedule with the lender, listed in court documents as CSFB 98 CI Baltimore Best Plaza LLC. Jetha said that the travel plaza and hotel began losing money after the Sept.