Trustee Sale Ahead for Ritz-Carlton Condos

DENVER-The residential and commercial condominiums at the new Ritz-Carlton hotel downtown is in foreclosure and will be liquidated in a trustee sale next month. The project is in foreclosure after the developer sold only one of the 25 residential units. Goldman Sachs is the lender.

Tina Necrason of Orlando, who says she was hired by court-appointed receiver Todd Smith to market the properties for sale, tells GlobeSt.com that the project’s collateral–25 residential condominiums and two ground-floor commercial condominiums–will be sold as one property via a sealed-bid auction next month.

Goldman Sachs lent $27 million to CJS Hotel LLC for the condominium development, according to published reports. CJS Hotel is a partnership led by Denver hotel developer Charlie Biederman. The 202-room, $75-million hotel below the condominiums was separately financed.

The hotel and the condominium are located at 1881 Curtis St., which was formally an Embassy Suites hotel. The condominium units are located on floors 15-19 of the 38-story building, which is topped off by apartments. Amenities for the condo owners include a private owners’ lobby with direct elevators, a dedicated owners’ lounge and board room, and a dedicated concierge.

Pre-sales for the condominiums started three years ago. One unit sold after the project opened early last year, but that’s it. Dee Chirafisi, a broker at Kentwood City Properties who had the units listed for about a year told the Denver Post recently that the project’s location across from the Greyhound Bus station and the lack of balconies made it difficult to sell the condos.

Goldman Sachs is reportedly upgrading the unit interiors and Smith has hired Necrason and Geoff Landry of Nomad Real Estate Group to handle the marketing and sales, respectively. Smith could not be reached for comment.

The units range in size from 1,140 square feet to 5,550 square feet and the current price range is $500,000 to $3 million, which represents a reduction of between 25% and 37% from the initial price range of $800,000 to $4 million.

“We reduced prices about 35% from other branded competitors,” Necrason told the Denver Post . The other branded competitor in the market is the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences under construction on 14th Street. With completion several months out there are reportedly firm commitments for half of the 102 condominium units in the project.