Sold At Auction

The 96-suite Marriott Residence Inn in the Hunt Valley-Cockeysville area was sold at auction yesterday for $5 million to the Bank of New England, the lending institution that foreclosed earlier this year on the previous owners, a group called BA-Hunt Valley Associates.Robert J. Crawford Jr., a senior vice president, said the bank will continue to operate the hotel as part of its own portfolio for the foreseeable future and may eventually seek a buyer in a private sale. He said the property at 10710 Beaver Dam Road is the ninth inn or hotel that the bank has acquired in a recent foreclosure sale -- and the first in the Baltimore area.

Eastpoint Mall, in southeast Baltimore County, was sold at auction Tuesday for $30.3 million, according to the auctioneer. A real estate investment firm based in southern Florida, LNR Property LLC, purchased the mall on the behalf of the lender who foreclosed on the property, said Alexander Forbes, of Tidewater Auctions LLC in Towson. One other bidder actively competed with LNR during the auction process, Forbes said. The auction stemmed from a lender's lawsuit against Thor Equities LLC, the New York-based investment firm that bought the mall in 2006.

The ghosts at Cockey's Tavern have no one to haunt except themselves until Jan. 27.At 10:30 that morning, the historic site, which has operated as an inn or tavern since the early 1800s, will be auctioned along with the restaurant equipment and some of the owners' personal property.Robert and Alida Lowry, who had owned it since 1985, closed the popular Westminster restaurant suddenly in September, saying the resignation of several longtime employees and the East Main Street reconstruction had hurt business.

The company owned by the family that has published the Baltimore Jewish Times for 93 years was sold at bankruptcy auction Monday morning for $1.26 million to the owners of the Washington Jewish Week, who are promising to keep the local focus of the weekly magazine. Louis Mayberg, one of the principals of Route 95 Publications, LLC, said the paper will continue to have "Baltimore-based reporters covering Baltimore-based issues…I hope we'll get the support from the Baltimore Jewish Community.

Some remnants of Baltimore Federal Financial FSA fetched $52,000 for the federal government as furniture, fixtures and equipment of the defunct thrift were sold at auction yesterday. The auction took place at the savings and loan's old administration building at 500 N. Calvert St.The auction was part of the effort by the Federal Resolution Trust Corp. to sell property and assets that the government acquired when it took over Baltimore Federal in February 1989. The federal agency is still attempting to sell $42 million worth of real estate owned by the thrift, including two branch operations, according to RTC spokeswoman Kate Spears.

The Cardinal Industries Building on Hammonds Ferry Road near Baltimore-Washington International Airport, a former center for modular home manufacturing that once had 300 employees, will be sold at an auction at noon Jan. 31 on the premises.Michael Fox Auctioneers is handling the sale of the vacant, 242,000-square-foot building and about 35 surrounding acres, which are zoned for industrial use.The auction comes more than a year after Ohio-based Cardinal Industries filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

In a footnote to the saga of former Baltimore Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean, the office building that led to the unraveling of her political career is being sold at auction.The two-story brick building in the heart of Federal Hill has been on the market for the past year since Mrs. McLean was convicted of theft and misconduct in a corruption scandal.NationsBank, which is foreclosing on the property, is forcing a sale at public auction Dec. 12. The bank is owed nearly $400,000 on the mortgage, according to court documents.

Symphony Woods Office Center, Rouse & Associates' landmark at the entrance to Columbia's Town Center, was sold at auction last week but will continue to operate under the developer's management.Balcor Pension Investors IV, the Chicago-based lender who financed the centerwith an $11.9 million loan and then foreclosed on it, bought the property for $9 million.It was the only bid at the auction, which took place Wednesday near the entrance to the county Circuit Courthouse in Ellicott City.Court documents indicate two Rouse & Associates partnerships owed a total of $15 million in principal and interest on the building's loanas of March 31.Linda G. Tresslar, the Balcor agent who made the bid, said she could not comment on the sale or foreclosure.

As many as 45 condominiums at Baltimore's posh Residences of the Colonnade will be among those available to prospective buyers at an auction this Saturday.One condominium, pardonez moi, will not be included in the auction. It is the Colonnade's two-story penthouse, "Loggia in the Sky," a 6,000-square-foot duplex that has its own, private elevator and comes with a 1991 Rolls Royce Corniche convertible as part of an asking price of $1.3 million.Selling for considerably less will be those units at the Colonnade that will go to auction.

It's just a tiny sliver of silver. Its face value wouldn't buy you a candy bar or a phone call. So what makes this one thin, tarnished Liberty Head dime, minted in San Francisco in 1894 and sold at auction in Baltimore on Monday, worth $1,322,500? Well, only 24 were minted, only nine are known to still exist - and collectors love it. "It's one of the most important coins in all of United States' numismatics," says John Feigenbaum, using the high-priced term for coin collecting. "The date itself is one of the three greatest dates of coins to buy, and this one is the finest of that date.

The shuttered Northwest Ice Rink in Baltimore's Mount Washington neighborhood was sold Wednesday at a foreclosure auction to a top bidder for $490,000, including a mortgage payoff amount. The buyer, who was not identified, plans to use the Cottonworth Avenue facility for something other than an ice rink, said Paul Cooper of Alex Cooper Auctioneers Inc., which handled the sale. The ice rink, formerly owned by Northwest Family Sports Center Inc., closed in August 2008 after 50 years in operation.

A hillside property with a view of Baltimore's harbor and skyline was sold at auction Tuesday for $715,000 to an unnamed buyer, whose representative said he expected the land would be developed for residential use. The auction of the 8.8-acre parcel on Waterview Avenue between Westport and Cherry Hill was a foreclosure sale on behalf of Columbia Bank. Tranzon Fox was the auctioneer. The city of Baltimore in 2004 approved plans for a project called Waterview Overlook, which was to contain condominiums and townhouses on the site, but construction never began.

A building and undeveloped land in the Hollander 95 Business Park sold in two separate foreclosure auctions Tuesday for a total $7.45 million, said Paul Cooper of Alex Cooper Auctioneers, which sold the property for lender M&T Bank. FRP Development Corp., a Sparks-based real estate development company, outbid several others to purchase the 82,000-square-foot warehouse, which is half-leased, for $4.35 million, Cooper said. The bank purchased eight undeveloped lots for $3.1 million, he said.

A Charles Village landmark, the "Copy Cat" building at 2443 N. Charles St., was sold at auction Tuesday to a father-and-son development team, Carl and Steven Verstandig. Their bid at the auction, handled by Alex Cooper Auctioneers, was $365,000 plus a 5 percent buyer's premium that brought the total price to $383,250. The Verstandigs, who have a company called CityWide Properties, said they plan to restore the exterior and renovate the interior. They said possible commercial tenants include a restaurant and a barber shop.

It was, the auctioneer said, "a very unusual opportunity" - 12 renovated rowhouses in and around Baltimore's Patterson Park neighborhood, for sale in whirlwind back-to-back auctions. But then, the reason they were up for grabs is very unusual, too. They belonged to the Patterson Park Community Development Corp., a nonprofit group that helped the East Baltimore neighborhood take a stunning U-turn from rapid decline into a hot place to live. The group countered blight and flight by snapping up vacant homes, rehabbing the properties and selling some while renting out others.

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.

The Baltimore maker of Mary Sue Easter eggs and of gourmet chocolate, Chesapeake Candy Inc., will be sold at auction next month as a way to pay off debt and keep the struggling company going. The public auction of Chesapeake Candy, which runs Mary Sue Candies Inc. and Naron Candy Co., was approved Tuesday by Baltimore Circuit Court. The candy maker filed Aug. 31 for state court insolvency, which is similar to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in federal court. The company has struggled since a 1996 merger between Mary Sue and Naron left it burdened with debt - now at $1.2 million - and unable to turn a profit, Mark Berman, president of the combined companies, said yesterday.

The auctioning of a large condo conversion project in Baltimore County drew a crowd of gawkers yesterday but only one bid - from the foreclosing lender. The 508-unit Rodgers Forge Condominiums, an apartment complex near Towson, was in the midst of being renovated and sold as condos. It is one of at least three local projects owned by Triton Real Estate Partners that have been or are scheduled to be auctioned. Twelve already sold condo units at the Rodgers Forge complex were not included in the auction.