By: Diane Benjamin
The Ensenberger building is held by the Huffs as Ensenberger Building Corp. They own other properties under Front N Center and Consolidated Properties Inc. To view the County Recorder of Deeds website you have to apply for access, so I will just give some highlights:
No Ensenberger condo sales are listed since 2013, the only activity is loan modifications.
The estimated $8.2 million price Giebelhausen presented to the council includes his cost of $4.8 million to buy four buildings.
Where did $4.8 million come from?
4/29/13 – loan modification from CEFCU with numerous properties held as collateral – see document here: Ensenberger Building-CEFCU
See Page 6:
First loan for $4,006,506.04 with payments of principal and interest of $29,000 per month
Second loan for $794,255.07 – 0% interest
$4,006,506 + $794,255 = $4,800,761 Just a coincidence they total $4.8 million?
The loan made last month by CEFCU is a modification of the $794,255.07 loan- see document here: Loan Modification
All the borrowers are listed on Page 15.
Obviously the $8.2 million is a payoff to CEFCU and a bailout to the Huffs.
Regular people are forced to sell property at market value. If your house is still “under-water” because of the housing market, wouldn’t it be nice to set the price at what you owe? Yet, that is exactly the package Tari is pushing the Council to approve! $8.2 million has no basis in facts.
Where are the appraisals Tari? The properties aren’t appraised for taxes at $4.8 million. Is the Council stupid enough to fall for a convoluted deal created by Giebelhausen and the Huffs? Gielbelhausen makes money and the Huffs get bailed out on their TIF created project that failed! The City of Bloomington TIF created the condo project for which there was no market. Now Tari wants another TIF for a hotel that his studies show it isn’t feasible. In 15 years taxpayers can bail them out too.
Where are all those people dying to live downtown Tari? Evidently they don’t want to live in a condo!
Click on the picture below to see all the properties owned by the Huffs under various names. The only property they don’t own south of Washington – north of Front – on N Center is 21-04-337-007, DUI Countermeasures Inc/Attorney Gary Morris. His address is in Peoria and there are no liens listed on the Recorders website for this property. Giebelhausen has said he will relocate them, I wonder if they want relocated. I bet the property value just skyrocketed though. The assessed value if $17,877 * 3.33 = $59,530 total value for tax purposes. (County website)
Where is the Pantagraph investigation of the facts? Sorry, forgot they don’t do investigative reporting. WJBC? Crickets! Since the cage liner would love to sell their building, don’t expect a report.
Tari has blamed former City Manger Tom Hamilton over and over for making bad deals. Tari: This one reeks of corruption. Hamilton has nothing on you.
The pin numbers grouped at Front and Center are the 49 pin numbers assigned to the Front and Center building.
Whoa is this a scam or what? If people can’t see this I don’t know what is wrong with them.
I cannot imagine why CEFCU would loan more. Something smells fishy here how they got an approval.
I wonder if Mayor Professor and his cell mate David Hales would like to buy my property because I just know McDonald’s restaurant wants to build here and in the mean time I’ll go get a loan against it and sell it to them for what I owe and a bit more.
Holy CRAP!
I wish the City would just walk away from the Front & Center deal and leave the Huffs hanging. The new activity at the Ensenberger building is probably because the Huffs believe Front & Center is a done deal. If anything, have a developer purchase the City parking lot and demolish the Elks building across the street. The parking lot is “shovel ready” and the City could recoup some money. The City just posted the draft of the Downtown Master Plan which suggests just that.
Now that would be hilarious leaving Huff et. al. with a higher monthly payment. I know I sure wouldn’t want to be handing over $29K+ a month.
Let them go bankrupt as far as I care. Then maybe someone will step in and offer them $1 for Front and Center.
Wheelers and dealers like this must be living one heck of an upscale lifestyle. Now they want the taxpayers to bail them out. How sweet is that?