Nate Paul and 99 Trinity Street, Austin, TX (Google Maps, Facebook)
The long-disputed $77 million sale of a prime downtown Austin plot inched forward this month — assuming a district judge’s ruling carries weight.
A Travis County judge approved a plan to sell the one-acre plot at 99 Trinity Street to Carr Properties, a private real estate investment firm, according to the Austin Business Journal. The parking lot and one-story warehouse on the site are across the street from the Austin Convention Center and surrounded by high-rise hotels and construction projects in the fast-developing area.
Yet Nate Paul’s World Class Holdings, the majority owner, has vowed to oppose any sale, even though the firm would make about $50 million on it. World Class bought the property in a limited partnership with Austin nonprofit the Mitte Foundation in 2012 for $9.7 million, ABJ reported.
Court-appointed receiver Greg Milligan initiated the sale. World Class says Milligan was wrongfully appointed and filed a petition with the Texas Supreme Court on Dec. 13 – three days before the district judge’s decision – seeking its intervention. The legal steps are the latest wrinkle in a case that has made its way through mediation, arbitration, and bankruptcy court already according to the ABJ.
A sale of the site, which received a foreclosure notice in 2019, would cover money owed to creditors of the limited partnership and would be a relief for Mitte, which owns about 15 percent of the property, according to the report.
Washington, D.C.-based Carr has agreed to terms that include a ban on the termination of the purchase and sales agreement for three years after court approval. Trinity Street would be Carr’s second purchase in the city after it bought an office building at 100 Congress Street earlier this year.
[ABJ]—Cindy Widner
