Foreclosure begins on King's Challenge Golf Course

Yesterday the Traverse City Business News reported that the former owners of the King’s Challenge golf course are suing Sugar Loaf Development LLC to foreclose.

The investment group, headed by John D. Sills and his SJS Development Co., said the new owners failed to make a required payment of $12,500 on Dec. 5 and owe about $27,000 in Cleveland Township property taxes due last September. “The land contract has been in default since Sept. 15, 2006 or longer,” Norman Droste, attorney for Sills and his partners, wrote in a letter to the current owner. Droste said he sees no chance that the new owners will retain control of the golf course. “The foreclosure has commenced, and a judgment will be entered three months after we filed the lawsuit,” he said. That means the foreclosure would be final in early April…

The golf course is south of M-22, next to the now-shuttered Sugar Loaf resort. The resort’s failure to resume operations has been seen as a drag on the viability of King’s Challenge.
Sugar Loaf Development paid $3 million for the golf course, its buildings and its fixtures, nearly $1 million for 115 adjacent acres, and about $400,000 for several additional parcels.
The deal involved a  $1,900,000 upfront payment, and the remainder was scheduled to be paid in monthly installments until May 2010.

Read Ex-owners foreclosing on King’s Challenge golf course in the TC Biz News.