Does a change in the mortgage holder of the Rouzan development mean a change is on the horizon for Tommy Spinosa’s long-planned TND on Perkins Road?
Daily Report on Thursday reported that local businessman and investor John Engquist recently acquired the bank loan for Rouzan from BancorpSouth for an undisclosed amount. Engquist declines to comment, except to confirm that he is “involved with a group that has purchased the note and has basically taken the position of the bank” on the project.
His attorney Charles Landry also declines to comment on the deal. For now, Engquist’s assumption of the Rouzan debt will not mean any changes for the TND, according to sources familiar with the deal. Spinosa still owns the 114-acre parcel in Southdowns and is said to be moving forward with the project.
But Engquist, president and CEO of H&E Equipment, has been developing the Americana subdivision in Zachary for the past several years, and sources say he might be more inclined to foreclose on Spinosa—should the developer default on the hefty loan—than the bank, which would not want to be saddled with an unfinished project it would have to market and sell. Sources also say the fact that BancorpSouth was willing to unload—presumably at deep discount—its debt on Rouzan suggests the bank considered it to be bad debt it wanted off the books.
Though it is unknown exactly how much Spinosa owes on the mortgage, it could be as much as 80% or so of the $13.1 million he paid for the land in 2005. Another factor that could be at play in all this is Spinosa’s legal problems at Perkins Rowe. The lender on that project, KeyBank National Association, has a foreclosure judgment against him for $200 million and is expected to move forward with a foreclosure sale in the next couple of months, if not sooner.
Though Spinosa has long maintained the two projects are separate and unrelated, sources say as a practical matter a bank would likely be nervous about the implications a Perkins Rowe foreclosure could have on the developer’s finances.
