Who would have thought when Bill White was elected that he would be spending a good amount of his time as Houston’s mayor threatening to foreclose on downtown hotel properties?
Anne Linehan over at blogHouston.net reviews the entire sordid tale.
Note to Mayor White — before you have the City foreclose its second lien on either of those hotel properties, please check to see whether either of them is generating enough revenue to pay operating expenses, much less debt service on the first lien indebtedness. Hotel properties “eat” money, and if the current owners are at least contributing enough to subsidize negative cash flows to operations, considering an alternative to foreclosure could save the City a ton of money. Sometimes you get more than you wish for when driving a hard bargain.
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
It’s just like Monopoly (updated)
On the heels of yesterday’s idiocy about the fantabulous Astrodome Hotel, today we learn that the city of Houston may soon take control of a second hotel:
Houston taxpayers have millions of dollars…
The taxpayers will likely be stuck with any lose, again.
No one is held accountable for the massive waste, fraud and abuse resulting from the Brown Administration.
The HOLTZE HOUSTON LLLP only has exposure on the physical asset, so the city can not get any recovery from them.
The only thing the city can do about the Magnolia Hotel, and it may not work, is to initiate a sheriff’s sale for back taxes.
HOLTZE HOUSTON LLLP is delinquent on taxes.
http://www.hctax.net/propertytax/deltax/DelStatement.asp?account=0010700000006
If it goes to the sheriff’s auction, one would think the holder of the first Lein must try and buy the property at the tax sale.
The taxes would then be paid, and the property would be in the control of the lender.
The city would then have to decide if they can recover from the appraisal firm.
Let’s look at the appraiser’s report. The appraiser who moused the Whitewater appraisal for McDougal did 36-months.
I will try and make a TXPIA request for the appraisals on these two delinquent properties.
BTW- The CC Hotel dodged ordering any appraisal, yet the taxpayers paid $102K to PKF for a seemingly worthless feasibility study.
Point of Information – METRO held the Advanced Transportation Technolgy Forum/Conference at the Magnolia last October. I was looking for the total METRO paid for that event. I seem to recall METRO allocating nearly $250K for the event. Looking for the backup documentation.