NORRISTOWN – What started as a klieg-lit dream to
put a movie studio in Norristown ended Wednesday with the old Logan Square
Shopping Center being bought at a sheriff's auction by its main investor.
Now that the foreclosure suit that spurred the sheriff's
sale is over, Montgomery County officials can pursue "whatever remedies
are open" to the county to recoup some of the $24.5 million in public
funds it put into the project, said the county's chief financial officer, Uri
Z. Monson.
Logan Lender, a Wayne firm, bought the two parcels
for a total of about $8,000 after filing a foreclosure suit in Montgomery
County Court in May against Johnson & Markley Redevelopment, a New Jersey
firm led by developer Charles Gallub.
The 24.5-acre property sold as two parcels, which
includes where USM, a facilities maintenance company, has offices. Together,
the parcels were valued at about $37 million, reflecting Logan Lender's
investment.
That total was considerably more than the $100,000
and $200,000 values of other properties being auctioned, prompting murmurs and
a loud "whoa" from those attending the sale when they heard the price
tags of the parcels - $19.5 million for one and $17.7 million for the other.
Logan Lender actually bought them for the cost of
taking the property to the sheriff's sale, including the sheriff's fees and
required advertising.
In 2007, Gallub proposed turning the vacant Sears,
Roebuck & Co. store on West Johnson Highway, about two blocks from Elmwood
Park Zoo, into a film studio. The plan was greeted enthusiastically by
Norristown and county officials.
A modified redevelopment project went on after the
studio plan crumbled. The project continued to swallow money without making
much progress until 2012, when the developer could no longer pay the project's
debts. By then, a new county board of commissioners had been elected, and it
refused to put in any more public money.
The county is saddled with a $24.5 million debt
because commissioners at that time agreed to stand second in line to Logan
Lender if the project failed. It will get no money from the sheriff's sale of
the property.
It's unclear what Logan Lender will do with the
property. Attorneys for it would not comment.
Source: Philly.com
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