CHANDLER, AZ-More than six years after construction began on the hotel/luxury condominium development Elevation Chandle, and five years after developer Jeff Cline obtained a bridge loan to keep things going, the project remains a see-through. According to the Arizona Republic, Elevation Chandler’s continued sad state is the result of a damaged economy, a developer determined to hang onto the project at all costs, botched auctions and a case that keeps bouncing back and forth between various courts.

The Republic reports the 10.5-acre site at Loop 101 and the Santan Freeway near Chandler’s Fashion Center continues wending its way through court to determine who owns the site. Despite Cline’s dogged refusal to let the asset go, one of the project’s lenders, California-based Point Center Financial, foreclosed on the project and had a trustee sale in 2009. At the time, BT Capital bid a million dollars, claiming it won the land, but Point Center and auctioneer TD Service disputed the claim and scheduled another auction, which took place in 2010. Point Center took back the land in that second auction, and BT Capital filed suit.

The Republic notes that the latest chapter in this saga of worst case scenarios had the Arizona Court of Appeals sending the case back to Maricopa County Superior Court, which represents a temporary win for BT Capital.

This soap opera of a project is now focused on who, exactly, owns Elevation Chander, which was originally slated to be a high-rise hotel topped by the condos. The blame for its continued failure, observers note, is wide and includes a stubborn owner who refused to give up control, a botched auction process and a slow court process.

"This thing has been tied up every which way over the years," Chandler City Councilman Rick Heumann told the Republic. "Everything from being dragged out by the original owner into foreclosure and, at the end, bankruptcy, and then they had a faulty (trustee) sale. The whole thing with the trustee sale was a mess."