By Harlan Levy
Journal Inquirer
WINDSOR LOCKS — A Hartford Superior Court judge has granted the owners of the long-vacant Montgomery factory complex a one-time-only seven-month extension in the town’s foreclosure action. The property had been scheduled to be sold at an auction Feb. 19.
Canal Benk Realty, the owner of the three-structure eyesore on 3½ acres on Canal Road, will have until Sept. 9 to pay $300,000 for back taxes and town equipment losses from two fires. If the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company can pay the town, the foreclosure will be dropped. Otherwise an auction of the more than 100-year-old former wire product manufacturer will go on, with the town reaping the proceeds.
Town officials began the foreclosure a year and a half ago. The seven-month delay is just part of the process, First Selectman Steven Wawruck said this week.
“They had the legal right to stay the foreclosure,” Wawruck said. “We put our faith in the court system, and we’ll continue on the same path and pursue all legal means to recoup the expenses owed the town.”
The property is worth $900,000, according to a town-funded independent appraisal. The court’s appraisal valued it at $1 million.
Brooklyn-based Mountain View Equities bought the complex in 2004, aiming to convert the space into luxury condominiums, but failed. Since then the investment group has amassed an unpaid tax bill of more than $217,000.
In late April three local teenagers were charged with arson in connection with a suspicious fire on April 11 at the compound, which took firefighters from half a dozen towns more than eight hours to quell. The fire badly damaged the former Fuller Russell Tobacco sorting house on the east side of the main building. In July 2006, another arson fire devastated the northern portion of the complex. The town lost $51,000 of the Fire Department’s equipment in that blaze, and a lien was placed on the building because it was uninsured.
If an auction takes place in September, the timing could be favorable, Wawruck said.
“The economy is rebounding, and we could hit it at the right time when there’s an upturn in the economy and there’s a lot of interest,” he said, “but I don’t know what the times will be like in September.”
Canal Benk Realty, the owner of the three-structure eyesore on 3½ acres on Canal Road, will have until Sept. 9 to pay $300,000 for back taxes and town equipment losses from two fires. If the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company can pay the town, the foreclosure will be dropped. Otherwise an auction of the more than 100-year-old former wire product manufacturer will go on, with the town reaping the proceeds.
Town officials began the foreclosure a year and a half ago. The seven-month delay is just part of the process, First Selectman Steven Wawruck said this week.
“They had the legal right to stay the foreclosure,” Wawruck said. “We put our faith in the court system, and we’ll continue on the same path and pursue all legal means to recoup the expenses owed the town.”
The property is worth $900,000, according to a town-funded independent appraisal. The court’s appraisal valued it at $1 million.
Brooklyn-based Mountain View Equities bought the complex in 2004, aiming to convert the space into luxury condominiums, but failed. Since then the investment group has amassed an unpaid tax bill of more than $217,000.
In late April three local teenagers were charged with arson in connection with a suspicious fire on April 11 at the compound, which took firefighters from half a dozen towns more than eight hours to quell. The fire badly damaged the former Fuller Russell Tobacco sorting house on the east side of the main building. In July 2006, another arson fire devastated the northern portion of the complex. The town lost $51,000 of the Fire Department’s equipment in that blaze, and a lien was placed on the building because it was uninsured.
If an auction takes place in September, the timing could be favorable, Wawruck said.
“The economy is rebounding, and we could hit it at the right time when there’s an upturn in the economy and there’s a lot of interest,” he said, “but I don’t know what the times will be like in September.”
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