With its most recent achievements, the Mosaic earns its place in Houston’s spec-development record books: Last month the 29-story condo tower near Hermann Park — wedged between Almeda and 288 — scored the loan-default trifecta, having notched a bankruptcy, mass foreclosures, and an attendant bank failure to its credit all within a single calendar year.
Chicago’s Corus Bankshares, which held a $71 million loan for the Mosaic, foreclosed on all 271 unsold units (out of 394 total in the building) in September, just days before the bank itself was seized by the FDIC. A few weeks later, the federal agency sold 40 percent of the bank’s real estate loans to a team of private-equity firms calling itself Northwest Investments and led by Starwood Capital Group — for 60 cents on the dollar.
Any further fun at the Mosaic will be courtesy of the FDIC, reports Nancy Sarnoff:
Comment of the Day: After the Ashby Highrise
“. . . My take on it is that this building MIGHT NOT be too bad, once the teeth-on-edge construction period is finished. (And I seem to be the only person who thinks the construction hassles should even matter to anyone. Big crane delivery and setup on Bissonnet, anyone?) But since there seems to be no legal way to stop this one, you can be sure that there will be some serious efforts to put rules in place to prevent any more. My own tongue-in-cheek explanation for why the neighborhood was so taken by surprise is that no-one ever thought for a minute that it made any kind of sense to build a high-rise on Bissonnet, for goodness sake.” [marmer, commenting on City to Ashby Highrise: Yes You Can!]