This story has been changed since original publication to correct the source publication’s name to ABiz.
Goldman Sachs Bank reportedly has its sights set on acquiring roughly 40 acres along Nicholson Road that is owned by Lafayette oilman and developer Mike Moreno, who is being sued by the bank for defaulting on a $52 million loan he took out in October 2013, ABiz reports.
The Baton Rouge property, on which Moreno had planned a mixed-used development called River District, is just one piece of land owned by Moreno that Goldman Sachs is seeking to seize and sell as part of the suit filed in a Lafayette federal court. The bank also wants a piece of property at the Port of Iberia. Goldman Sachs is also asking for the right to appoint a “keeper” to manage the property through the process of appraisals, advertising and other necessary steps leading up to a public sale to the highest bidder.
After six years of planning and acquiring property on both sides of Nicholson near Magnolia Mound Plantation, plans for River District were unveiled at a community meeting in January 2014. As Daily Report detailed at that time, renderings of the project prepared by architect Steve Oubre of Architects Southwest depicted multiple images of a cityscape that is very different than the blighted Nicholson Drive of today—sleek, glass-front buildings, a neighborhood grocery store, a public plaza and a streetcar down the center of the median.
River District was to include 1,800 residential units—both condos and apartments—a 220-room hotel, 100,000 square feet of office space and 100,000 square feet of commercial space, including a 40,000-square-foot neighborhood grocery store or drugstore.
In the suit filed on July 8, Goldman Sachs contends Moreno owes the bank $58 million in principal and interest as of June 15. The suit was filed against Moreno, his wife, Tiffany, and a number of his various business entities.
Moreno reportedly secured the loan from Goldman Sachs on Oct. 11, 2013, just two weeks before his fracking company, Green Field Energy Services, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It was later liquidated and went out of business.
ABiz reports that Moreno, who turns 47 later this month and appears to be selling assets to pay off some of his mounting debt, cashed out big time in 2007 through the partial sale of Moreno Group Holdings, which included offshore fabricator Dynamic Industries, a company he had purchased in 1993.
According to Goldman Sachs’ lawsuit, Moreno is now living in Harris County, Texas, presumably Houston, one of several cities where he owns homes, he confirmed to ABiz in late 2011. Two years later, in the months leading up to Green Field’s bankruptcy, he added to his collection of stately estates, buying Troy Aikman’s former home in Dallas.
