Development gets new blood
GONZALES — The 340-acre mixed-use development Edenborne is emerging from financial and legal troubles during the past 18 months that escalated to the point that the site was ordered for seizure by Ascension Parish sheriff’s deputies and sold for unpaid taxes.
But investors in the project along Interstate 10 in Gonzales have a new financing agreement with First NBC Bank in New Orleans and paid off the project’s former lender and the back taxes, according to a project attorney and land records.
Edenborne, which is to be the future home of River Parishes Community College, has lost some of its Michigan investors and gained local backers who include NFL Colts wide receiver and New Orleans-area native Reggie Wayne, one of those new investors said.
“I hope to start cutting lumber off our property this week forthcoming,” co-investor Brian Rickel said on Friday.
He said he and Wayne were approached four months ago. He said the growth and jobs in Ascension, as well as the industrial investment in the region, including the $3.4 billion Nucor steel mill in neighboring St. James Parish, made the project attractive.
“I firmly believe in the state, in Louisiana, and believe more in Gonzales than most places I have ever been and feel very proud and fortunate to be a part of this development,” Rickel said.
Rickel said he shares a majority stake in Edenborne Development Co. LLC with Wayne through R.D. Wayne Development Co. LLC.
Bill Clark, a developer with Michigan roots who is one of Edenborne’s original investors, remains a co-manager only as an individual, land records show.
Called a traditional neighborhood development, Edenborne is located at the southwest corner of I-10 and La. 44. A major commercial strip along I-10, several hundred homes and multifamily units, as well as RPCC, are planned in Edenborne.
The initial phase of the new college is being funded with $19 million set aside from a $151 million bond issue for state community and technical colleges. Another $2 million grant from the state Board of Regents is paying for the land, according to an RPCC news release.
Work on an access road and other infrastructure should begin this month and be extended to the RPCC site in three months, said John Seago, attorney for Edenborne.
The road and infrastructure, for which Seago said First NBC has provided $2.8 million to build, would link the site with La. 44.
On June 20, the developers of Edenborne signed a $2 million purchase agreement with the state through the Division of Administration for a 43-acre tract within Edenborne.
Among the conditions, the agreement requires that the road and infrastructure be ready for RPCC within a year of the signing, the agreement says.
Spokespersons for the Division of Administration and Louisiana Community and Technical College System said officials were not aware of the recently settled legal troubles.
A spokeswoman for the system was not available for comment Friday after Edenborne officials spoke about their plans.
But a January presentation on the system website estimates that construction on RPCC would start in June and last a year.
Rickel said he hopes to see the rest of the road finished by June so work on homes and multi-family units can start.
He said initial work putting up a silt fence has been done and plans to meet with Gonzales Mayor Barney Arceneaux early this week about permits.
Arceneaux confirmed the planned meeting and that the project seems to be moving forward.
Edenborne’s developers had been talking with Gonzales officials and the Ascension Parish School Board to locate in the project.
Originally scheduled for construction in 2008, Edenborne was caught in the economic slowdown of the past several years.
The school system, which had discussed locating a school next to RPCC for dual enrollment, bought 63 acres in a tract across La. 44 from Edenborne a few months ago for a future high school, said Johnnie Balfantz, school system spokesman.
“We have no current interest at the Edenborne site,” he said.
Arceneaux said the city remains interested.
The current forward momentum is a turnabout from the last year and a half, though Edenborne officials have maintained they were working out the financial and legal issues.
In October 2010, Edenborne was sued in the 23rd Judicial District Court by adjacent landowners, Three Thirty-Nine LLC and Emirau Partners LP, over the then-unbuilt access road now set for construction.
The corporations sold the site to Edenborne, but the sale landlocked their remaining property so Edenborne agreed to build a road.
In April 2011, RBS Citizens, which held the $11.25 million mortgage on the property, sued Edenborne to recoup unpaid principal and interest of nearly $9.2 million.
The suit over the road appeared to be headed for appeal late last year, potentially further delaying the project. But on Dec. 30, the parties closed an agreement to pay off RBS and settle the road dispute, Seago said.
Earlier this month, dismissal papers were filed for the original road suit and the appeal, court records say.
David Rubin, attorney for RBS, said the suit over the loan has been resolved.