100 N. Main investor’s finances complex
Filed bankruptcy in Florida for troubled retirement property
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The point person for 100 North Main filed a bankruptcy case this week attempting to stave off a state receivership action on a financially troubled Florida retirement community.
Memphis-born real estate investor and consultant Eli Freiden’s company filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization Thursday for University Village. The continuingcare senior community in Tampa has been targeted by Florida insurance regulators for a couple of years.
Larry Weissman, lawyer for building owner IMH Memphis LLC, said Friday he didn’t expect the bankruptcy to affect his client’s efforts to eliminate building code violations and redevelop the building.
After an appearance in Environmental Court, Weissman described Freiden as a “tangential player” in IMH, the company that’s seeking to convert Memphis’ tallest building from office space to residential.
Freiden is the point of contact listed for the ownership group, but group members are not identified in real estate and corporate filings.
The bankruptcy case comes as building owners say they’ve found a contractor to clean out the debris-strewn building for a tenth of the cost of a threatened city-sponsored cleanup.
Mike Todd of Premiere Contractors Inc. said he’s given owners a cost-plus proposal estimated at about $135,000 to remove debris that’s posing a fire hazard.
Todd said he’s ready to begin work next week, as soon as he receives an initial payment from owners.
Environmental Court Judge Larry Potter said he prefers to have private owners do the work, but if the payment to Todd isn’t made by 1:30 p.m. Monday, “then the city will go to work.” The city’s estimate, for which no detail has been provided in court, is $1.3 million.
The vacant skyscraper has been in court on code violation charges since last fall. Owners have won a series of delays while
seeking $60 million to $70 million in financing for a residential conversion.
The bankruptcy filing in Florida was signed by Freiden as manager of University Village’s general partner.
It says a receivership action by the Florida Department of Financial Services has prevented the owners from selling the community or making a management change acceptable to state regulators.
It says the bankruptcy is designed “to avoid the costs and expenses of a trial in the receivership action and to facilitate the sale of the village and the retirement center.”
Regulators accused University Village owners of mismanagement, including failing to pay refunds owed to residents and not having proper credentials to own the facility.
In addition to Freiden, another businessmen with ties to 100 North Main has been involved in University Village: John W. Bartle, an Indiana-based development consultant on the Memphis project.
Elsewhere in Memphis, Bartle and Freiden worked in management roles for Ridgecrest apartments, a government-subsidized housing complex in Frayser that emerged from a two-year bankruptcy reorganization earlier this year.
Bartle also was point person for another Memphis complex, Hilldale, that defaulted last fall on payments on tax-exempt bonds issued by a city housing board.
IMH Memphis bought 100 North Main in August 2015 from a group led by another Memphis-born businessman, Isaac Thomas. Thomas’ company bought the building in 2013, emptied it of tenants and proposed a nearly $100 million redevelopment that never got off the ground.