Bank plans foreclosure sale of Post Falls Landing

The bank that holds the note on a planned 33-acre mixed-use development in Post Falls says it’s ready to move forward on a sale within 45 days.

Earlier this week an Idaho Bankruptcy Court judge dismissed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed last year by project developer Harry Green. The bankruptcy filing had halted a planned foreclosure sale of Post Falls Landing, on which Green’s company, The Point at Post Falls LLC, owes more than $8.3 million in unpaid principal, interest, fees and attorneys costs.

Allan Scharton, a vice president with the Dallas office of Liberty Bankers Life Insurance Co., said the bank now intends to foreclose on the development, which was launched more than a decade ago and was meant to transform a former lumber mill site on the Spokane River into the city’s new urban center.

“All I can say is that the property was held as collateral on the loan and we intend to foreclose on it in 45 days,” Scharton said.

The project has so far produced two condo buildings and a 145-slip marina. Proposed retail shops and an amphitheater are still on the drawing board.

The original plans included as many as 450 condo units plus a hotel, and Green later suggested that the city of Post Falls build a city hall within the development.

Officials embraced the Post Falls Landing concept, even approving a local tax improvement district that led to $1.5 million spent on streets, lights and curbs. That money was repaid by the Post Falls Urban Renewal Agency to the bank, not to Green’s company.

Green, whose Spokane projects included the successful conversion of Holy Names Academy into retirement apartments and transforming a former tuberculosis treatment campus into a retirement home, declined to answer questions about his options.

Earlier this year, nonpayment of bills led to city officials turning off water to the project’s marina. Green’s company paid about $1,200 owed to the city, and water service was restored last month.