The Uptown 240 development in Dillon is pictured on Oct. 21, 2021. (Libby Standord/Summit Daily)
Uptown 240, a bankrupt and unbuilt condo building in the mountain town of Dillon, is being listed for sale even though its developers still hope to complete it.
Ahead of a September bid deadline and auction, Hilco Real Estate is marketing Uptown 240 as a bargain property perfect for either development or redevelopment. Hilco, which will take a 4-percent commission on the sale, values Uptown 240 at $30 million currently.
“We see the bankruptcy sale as an opportunity to acquire this property at an aggressive price, pick up construction right where the last developer left off, and move forward towards completion and sell-off,” Hilco broker Terry Rochford said in a news release.
“Whether the proposed plan is seen through or the site is totally reimagined, this area should see continued demand and desirability for the foreseeable future,” he said.
At the moment, there is little to be desired about Uptown 240. The project broke ground in 2019, floundered financially for years and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February. Its foundation has been laid but nothing else and the project lost its building permits this spring.
Uptown 240 was designed to have 80 units, ranging from three-bedroom condos with seven-figure price tags to $300,000 studio apartments. It was the brainchild of brother and sister Danilo and Chantelle Ottoborgo, whose family ran a former restaurant on the property.
The Ottoborgos have resisted calls to sell Uptown 240 this year and have sought financing to finish building the condos, which they expect will be worth $80 million when finished.
In a court filing Friday, the Ottoborgos said they are “pursuing a refinance or a sale contemporaneously” and received commitments from Fairchild, a national lender, for a $20 million bridge loan and $49 million construction loan. If those fall through, they will sell.
An exact bid deadline and auction date have not been finalized. The Ottoborgos had planned to collect bids by Sept. 12 and, assuming there is more than one, auction the property Sept. 20. But at a hearing Friday, an attorney for the Ottoborgos indicated that the auction will be moved up to the week of Sept. 11 to better meet deadlines for repaying creditors.
Uptown 240 is a partially built condo complex at 240 Lake Dillon Drive in Dillon. (Hilco Real Estate/Vimeo)
Michigan-based Porritt Group purchased the project’s debt last year and is owed $9.3 million under a settlement agreement it reached with the Ottoborgos. The first payment is due in mid-October, giving the Ottoborgos a hard deadline to sell or refinance. Unrelated to Uptown 240, the Porritt Group is trying to develop a large lakefront hotel in that area.
Porritt and others who are owed money by the Ottoborgos, along with Dillon town officials, have expressed deep skepticism about the sibling duo’s promises of Fairchild funding.
In April, Porritt asked to be allowed to foreclose on the property because, it argued, Uptown 240 isn’t viable. Porritt later relented. The next month, an attorney for Uptown 240 said the project would “live or die” by its ability to get financing on May 23. That money didn’t arrive.
“Why should we trust you?” Dillon Mayor Carolyn Skowyra, a vocal supporter of the project when it broke ground four years ago, asked Danilo Ottoborgo at a May hearing.
Meanwhile, people who bought condos at Uptown 240 are owed about $6 million. They have formed a committee and hired a lawyer to represent them in the bankruptcy case.
“The committee is open to either of the two substantive alternatives identified in the (Ottoborgos’) plan,” it said last week. “A potential sale or refinancing of the project.”
