The Fontainebleau Las Vegas has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Florida courts. Thousands of people are laid off and its fate is uncertain.
Fontainebleau Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Another Las Vegas construction project bites the dust. On June 9, the Las Vegas Fontainebleau filed for bankruptcy. The Fontainebleau is located on Las Vegas Boulevard which is prime real estate. It was going to be a multi use resort with a hotel casino, condos, posh shopping and fancy restaurants. Although it was widely known to be in financial trouble, no one on the outside of the company was entirely sure what course of action the developers would take. Fontainebleau and two of it's entities, Fontainebleau Las Vegas Holding and Fontainebleau Las Vegas Capital Corp., all individually filed paperwork on Tuesday night. Fontainebleau, the Las Vegas condominiums project is affiliated with the Fontainebleau Miami Beach Development, but it is a separate legal entity and is not affected at all by this bankruptcy.
The developer of Fontainebleau has claimed in separate legal paperwork that various lenders have hampered the success of Fontainebleau and contributed to its demise. Reviewed journal, said Howard Karawan that, "It is this stage of our lending force us unhappy. By reneging on the revolving credit facility, they effectively shut down the project and put thousands of people out of work." April 23 of this year, Fontainebleau lawyers filed suit against a group of banks which include Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. They make a claim that the lenders were supposed to lend over $770 million which was necessary to continue building.
The banks in turn counter that Fontainebleau defaulted on a loan. Since bankruptcy has been filed, the billion dollar suit has been dropped and refiled in bankruptcy court. The Fontainebleau alleges a conflict of interest involving the Deutsche Bank because it is the owner of the Cosmopolitan which is a rival company. Also included in the lawsuit against the banks are secured and unsecured creditors. The lawsuit lists 20 creditors whose debt is secured but the unsecured creditors paperwork hasn't been received by the courts yet.
If lenders had honored their financial obligations, then the Fontainebleau wouldn't be in this trouble is the claim the developer is making. Both construction workers and corporate staff were laid off in April, jobs lost were over 3,000. This is just in April alone. The Fontainebleau was going to provide Las Vegas with several thousand new jobs. Now, not only are those future jobs in jeopardy, but thousands of construction workers have already been laid off. This is a huge set back for Las Vegas' already foundering economy, we are 7th in the country for unemployment with a reported 10.6% unemployment rate for April. Regardless of whether the lending banks are found to be responsible or not, on the streets it just equals another round of layoffs.
For condominium builders this is another sign of trouble in the Las Vegas housing market. Fortunately this translates into good news for buyers. It is definitely a buyers market right now. The business section of the Review Journal reports a 53.4% drop in Las Vegas condo prices from last year with the average cost being $65 thousand. Personally, I think real estate will go a bit lower over the next year but even considering that, it's still a good time to buy.
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