Tamarack homeowners fear closing for central Idaho resort if judge doesn’t let them intervene

(AP) 

BOISE, Idaho (AP) – Tamarack Resort homeowners fear lifts and other equipment will be stripped and sold for pennies on the dollar if they can’t convince an Idaho judge to approve their plan to take $7.9 million from a Mexican real-estate investor to save the upcoming ski season.

On Monday, 4th District Court Judge Patrick Owen heard competing salvos from lawyers for homeowners and a lender group led by Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group.

Mexico-based Inmobiliaria Las Fuentes, S.A. de C.V. has offered the loan to reopen the ski resort and to protect unfinished buildings over the next 11 months, but made a deal contingent on being repaid before existing creditors, something Credit Suisse and others are fighting. Tamarack creditors are already owed upward of $300 million.

Without new funding, said Leonard De Los Prados, one of the homeowner group’s leaders, the resort 90 miles north of Boise could share the fate of Colorado’s Stagecoach Ski Area, a major resort undertaking abandoned in 1974 after high hopes of developers and vacation real-estate buyers collapsed. Today, little more than a few lift towers there remain.

“If this doesn’t get approved, Tamarack will be sold as salvage instead of as a resort,” predicted De Los Prados.

He’s the Beverly Hills, Calif., accountant for Alfredo Miguel, the Mexican-Lebanese businessman who the second-largest investor in Tamarack. Jean-Pierre Boespflug, a native of France who controls just over 50 percent of the resort.

The homeowner group said Miguel isn’t involved in the deal with Inmobiliaria Las Fuentes.

After hearing both sides, Owen said he’ll rule soon whether to let the homeowners intervene in the foreclosure case, which he’s scheduled for a trial next March.

But even if he does let them in, it’s no guarantee he’d also approve their plan for the Mexican firm’s loan, especially over objections of Credit Suisse.

“I’m not unsympathetic to the plight of these homeowners whose property values have been undoubtedly affected, not only by the general downturn in the entire economy of the country, but more specifically by the environment of the failed resort,” said Owen. “There’s just very little a court can do about those two overwhelming circumstances.”

Credit Suisse lawyer Randall Peterman contended Tamarack vacation homes aren’t part of the lenders’ foreclosure case, so homeowners should have no legal standing to formally enter the court fight.

“There’s no nexus between the real property being foreclosed on … and the property of the intervening parties,” Peterman said. “This organization has no skin in the game.”

The homeowners fear utilities will soon shut off power critical to heating Tamarack’s unfinished buildings, possibly accelerating decay as winter sets in. They point to damaged resort roofs, dismantled and dirty kitchen facilities, abandoned offices, snow cats parked haphazardly on the mountainside – all things dragging down their investments.

“Everyone who bought anything at Tamarack Resort and continues to own anything at Tamarack Resort has an interest in the entire development,” Steve Lord, their lawyer, told the judge of why the group should be allowed to intervene.

Hans Albert, a native of Hamburg, Germany and a homeowner who was in Owen’s courtroom Monday, said securing the judge’s blessing for Mexican real-estate loan would buy time to attract a new, longterm Tamarack investor who interested in running the resort, not plundering its assets.

“We realize this isn’t a permanent solution,” Albert said. “But in these times we’re in, one year could make a real difference.”

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

RE/MAX Resort Realty is a proud sponsor of the first annual Pink at the Rink Women’s Hockey Tournament in McCall, Idaho, November 6th-8th at the Manchester Ice & Event Centre.  Proceeds from the event will help local women, who otherwise couldn’t afford it, receive cancer screening mammograms at McCall Memorial Hospital’s Breast Care Clinic. The clinic performs 1,000 mammograms a year, of which 75 are paid from grants such as the Susan G. Komen grants. Idaho is the lowest of all fifty states in the percentage of women who receive potentially life-saving mammograms. Hospital staff will be available at the event to educate women about local services, self-examinations, and life-style choices that reduce the incidence of breast cancer.

Corbett Bottles Real Estate Marketing is holding a live property auction at the Shorelodge on October 24 at 12 pm.   Multiple properties will be auctioned, including 17 condominiums. Six of the condos are absolute — no minimum bid.  A 3,835 square foot home is also being auctioned. The home is situated on 61 acres with unbstructed westerly views looking at Oregon mountains and New Meadows Valley below. The minimum bid is $449,000.  Contact RE/MAX Resort Realty for information or representation at the auction.  208-634-5400

Based on recent sales from the Mountain Central MLS, the number of residential units sold in McCall and surrounding communities, from Jan 09 to Sept. 09,  were up by over 100% from 2008, during the same period.  The median price home fell approximately 50% from $275,500 in 2008 to $139,500 in 2009.  Lot/land sales were down by 7%, with a median price of $67,500, a 22% decrease from 2008.  Commercial property sales were up 100%, with a median price of $147,500, an increase of 47%.   Although significantly lower than at the peak of the market in 2006, these numbers reflect some hope of stability in the market.  Sales numbers include McCall, Donnelly, Cascade and New Meadows.

McCall made the Bend Bulletin in the Oct. 7th issue.    Here is the link to the article.  I must say it is one of the best articles I have read about McCall.  Very informative and positive about our community and all of its great attributes, which is why we and numerous others have chosen to live and play in McCall.

http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090920/NEWS0107/909200345