Glimcher responds to ex-partner’s fraud suit

The legal battle between the developers competing to build a huge sports, health and entertainment complex in the Sunbury area took a step forward this week.

One of the developers, David Glimcher, filed a response to the lawsuit filed against him in November by the competing developer, Glimcher’s former associate Tony Sekulovski of Blue Horseshoe Ventures. The two had partnered on the development when it was called Planet Oasis — a 350-acre project next to the Tanger Outlets off Interstate 71.

Sekulovski sued Glimcher in Delaware County Court of Common Pleas in November, accusing Glimcher of fraudulently trying to transfer rights to Blue Horseshoe property in Sunbury and Gahanna to himself in return for payment of $1.

Sekulovski’s suit sought a judgment that Sekulovski and his son, Alex Sekulovski, are the sole owners of Blue Horseshoe

Ventures and its projects. Sekulovski has since abandoned plans to develop a second effort, a mixed-use project in Gahanna known as Hamilton Towne Centre. Glimcher says he’s proceeding with a version of that project on this own.

This week, four months after Sekulovski’s filing, Glimcher responded to the suit. He denies Sekulovski’s accusation of fraud and claims Glimcher himself developed the idea for Planet Oasis years ago. Glimcher also says he negotiated with property owners to secure the rights to develop Planet Oasis in 2017, before Sekulovski entered the picture as “a minority partner in the development” at Glimcher’s invitation, then later became a one-third partner with Glimcher and his associate Lenni Male, according to Glimcher.

Glimcher and Male worked to secure tenants and partners for Planet Oasis and Hamilton Towne Centre, Glimcher asserts in the court filing. Glimcher says Sekulovski was not actively involved in securing these deals and Sekulovski told the other two partners in October that they had to consent to a new partnership agreement or he would “blow ... up” the deal. Sekulovski “intentionally and maliciously” deleted files with previous partnership documents and “unilaterally withdrew” money from the Blue Horseshoe Ventures

checking account, Glimcher states.

Glimcher’s response makes several counterclaims against Sekulovski, including civil conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duties, defamation and counts of fraud.

Meanwhile, both Sekulovski and Glimcher say they plan to develop the big Sunbury project, though under different names. Glimcher said he is proceeding with Planet Oasis while Sekulovski has renamed his version Arcadia.

Both plans call for a mix of entertainment and sports uses, including cinemas, an indoor sports venue, hotel and spa, theater, water park and skate park. In an interview on Friday, Glimcher said he has continued signing deals with new tenants but is keeping that information under wraps for now.

Asked for a response to Glimcher’s countersuit, Ryan Stubenrauch, a spokesman for Sekulovski, wrote in an email: “We’re happy to see that Mr. Glimcher has stopped trying to avoid being served with our lawsuit. This case comes down to whether Mr. Glimcher, with no ownership or authority from our company, was permitted to ‘sell’ himself millions of dollars of company real estate for one dollar. We’re very confident that the court will side with us and invalidate the sham document Mr. Glimcher has used to try and delay this project.”