River Oaks Examiner reporter Mike Reed makes a valiant stab at deciphering the latest twists in the ongoing legal battle between the owner of the 7.68-acre site at the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy where the Wilshire Village Apartments stood until last summer and Wedge Real Estate Finance, the lender that’s been trying since then to foreclose on the property. All that time, Matthew Dilick, the managing partner of property owner Alabama & Dunlavy Ltd., has been using a portfolio of delaying tactics to forestall foreclosure — hoping to sell or refinance the property before it’s taken from him and “two unnamed limited partners.”
According to Wedge, a Feb. 2 foreclosure sale marked the fourth month in a row such a sale had been scheduled, only to be halted by court actions.
Conspicuous among the court documents was a check for $1 million from Tour Partners Ltd., of Spring, Texas, to Wedge, dated Jan. 29 with “Alabama Dunlavy funding†written on it. The address on the check matches that of the Augusta Pines Golf Club.
The president of Tour Funding, Dennis Wilkerson, who signed the check, did not return calls from the Examiner. Neither did attorneys for either party in the lawsuit and foreclosure proceedings.
However, a few pieces of the puzzle were available through court documents:
Negotiation to lease the property for use as an H-E-B grocery store have been conducted by a “purchaser†identified as R.H. Abercrombie.
- Wilshire Village fate: Legal moves, H-E-B overtures [River Oaks Examiner]
- Wilshire Village coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
According to the story, the lawsuit is still on and will resume after a short break so to speak. Gets curiouser and curiouser.
Where is Jay Cohen in all of this? Supposedly he sold the property and yet continued to collect rent from the “squatters” as they are referred to by Dilick. Did he, does he, still own an interest in the property?
So where’s Bill White in all this? I guess he’s lucky that his Republican opponents for governor wouldn’t consider worthy of scandal to scam an old man out of his property, destroy historic architecture, and evict the poor.