Nearly a year after Goldman Sachs Bank took back property in Baton Rouge and New Iberia from Lafayette oilman Michael Moreno to satisfy a $52.4 million loan, the bank has a potential buyer for the New Iberia property.
The Port of Iberia has signed a letter of intent with Goldman Sachs to acquire the more than 100 acres of industrial property at 6005 Port Road in New Iberia once owned by Moreno, according to an item on the Board of Commissioners meeting agenda.
Port of Iberia Executive Director Craig Romero was scheduled to update the port’s board of commissioners on the deal at their monthly meeting earlier this week but it was canceled due to weather. Romero could not be reached this morning for comment.
Just because Goldman Sachs and the port are negotiating a deal over the New Iberia site, which Moreno originally acquired from Dynamic Industries, does not necessarily mean the bank has a buyer for the Baton Rouge property.
That property consists of some 32 acres along Nicholson Drive that Moreno and his sister Dalis Waguespack at one time planned to turn into a mixed-use development called the River District.
Though the Nicholson Drive and New Iberia properties were part of the same loan package, the sale of one piece does not necessarily have implications for the sale of the other. That said, it’s likely the bank has been working behind the scenes to try to find a buyer for the former River District site, which Moreno began acquiring in the early 2000s in more than 50 separate transactions totaling $23 million.
“We don’t know if they’re marketing the Nicholson Drive property but it would be logical that they would be trying to get rid of it,” says Wesley Moore, an appraiser with Cook, Moore and Associates. “(The bank) has two large, non-income generating properties so it would only make sense that they would be marketing them. But it has been very quiet for months.”
Goldman Sachs took back both properties from Moreno in February 2017, after winning a foreclosure suit it filed against Moreno Properties in 2015. In June 2017, a Moreno friend and Carencro businessman, Carrol Castille, told Daily Report that Moreno was trying to negotiate a new deal with the bank in hopes of buying back some of the Nicholson Drive property.
“He’s trying to get it back and do the right thing,” Castille said at the time.
—Stephanie Riegel
