The minimum offer that will be accepted at the auction next week Wednesday is approximately $22 million, but that could change the day before.
By Jonathan Friedman / Special to The Malibu Times
The troubled 28-acre triangular lot connecting Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu Canyon Road and Civic Center Way will be available for purchase at a foreclosure auction next week on Wednesday.
The lot received municipal approval for a 146-room hotel in 1998, but it was never granted the coastal development permit, or CDP, to complete the approval process. It is not clear if the municipal permit has expired. The minimum offer that will be accepted at the auction is approximately $22 million, although that could change the day before the auction.
The property last year went into foreclosure with a mortgage debt of approximately $22 million. It is also the subject of a lawsuit from a company created by local developer Richard Weintraub against Ezri Namvar, a joint-venture partner with Weintraub on the project. Other partners are also named in the suit.
The site is currently in the hands of East West Bank. TD Service Co. will conduct the auction at the Los Angeles County Courts Building in Norwalk at 11 a.m. East West officials declined to comment for this story.
Marlene Cleghorn, trustee sale officer for TD, said on Tuesday that the minimum bid allowed of $22 million is based on the mortgage debt combined with foreclosure and attorney fees. She said East West could do an appraisal and determine the property should sell for less money. She said the minimum bid allowed will be finalized the day before the auction.
No bid will be accepted below the minimum one allowed. Buyers must come to the auction with a cashier’s check in hand. If no purchase is made, East West must then decide what it will do with the property. No other auctions will take place.
Cleghorn said she did not know whether the municipal permit expired. She recommended talking to the city. A call on Tuesday to Planning Manager Joyce Parker-Bozylinski was not immediately returned. At the time the City Council granted the municipal permit, development proposals needed to go to the California Coastal Commission for CDPs. The city now grants both municipal permits and CDPs, with the Coastal Commission handling appeals. Three years ago, Weintraub told The Malibu Times he and the investors would soon be applying for the CDP. This did not occur.
Weintraub’s plan called for a hotel divided into 16 villas ranging in size up to 6,000 square feet each that would surround private courtyards. The proposed architectural style of the project was along the lines of a Southern California garden hotel with a historic Spanish Mediterranean character. In the 2007 interview, he said the Hotel Bel-Air in Stone Canyon is an example of the feel he wanted to achieve.
The Adamson family, which then owned the property, applied to the county for a 300-room hotel in the 1970s. The project received county and Coastal Commission approval, but when Malibu became a city in 1991, everything came to a halt. The Adamsons submitted a permit application to the city in 1994. A year after receiving municipal approval in 1998, they sold the site to Weintraub.