A U.S. District Court judge has put on hold the seizure and auction sale of a roughly 35 acre tract of land straddling Nicholson Drive between LSU and downtown Baton Rouge, on which Lafayette developer Mike Moreno had planned an ambitious mixed-use development known as River District.
Goldman Sachs Bank is seeking the seizure and sale of the property, as well as another large tract at the Port of Iberia, to satisfy a $52 million loan Moreno took out in 2013. As first reported by ABiz, Judge Rebecca F. Doherty of the Western District of Louisiana last week ordered the seizure and sale of the properties. But on Tuesday, Doherty issued an order staying the seizure and sale, pending a ruling on a motion by Moreno’s lawyers to compel arbitration in the case. The motion has been set to be taken up by the court on Nov. 20.
With interest, Goldman Sachs says in court filings that Moreno owes it $58.4 million. The bank claims Moreno defaulted on the loan, for which he had put the properties up as collateral.
The River District had been envisioned as a 40-acre mixed-use development that would 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.
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.
Under last week’s order, marshals were to turn the property over to Latter & Blum Management, which will serve as 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. The order on Tuesday also halts that process for the time being.
