Foreclosure Auction

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.

The owners of the vacant Parole Plaza shopping center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, forcing cancellation of a foreclosure auction set for yesterday, and buying much-needed time to execute possible sale of the property in the next few weeks. Anne Arundel County officials - who found out about the federal bankruptcy court filing yesterday morning - worried that it further complicates plans to revitalize the 1960s-era shopping center. "We are disappointed that this may result in further delay [in redevelopment]

The owners of the vacant Parole Plaza shopping center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, forcing cancellation of a foreclosure auction set for yesterday, and buying much-needed time to execute possible sale of the property in the next few weeks. Anne Arundel County officials - who found out about the federal bankruptcy court filing yesterday morning - worried that it further complicates plans to revitalize the 1960s-era shopping center. "We are disappointed that this may result in further delay [in redevelopment]

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.