Paul McMorrow – Snappy Title TK TK

…there was Hayward Place, a parking lot/would-be luxury high-rise that’s been trying to make a go of it for the better part of a decade now.

Millennium Partners, developer of the Ritz towers, has been collecting parking revenue while sitting on the thing for years, and since this is an election year, some folks have voiced objections about that particular state of affairs.

Here’s an item to add to the long list of reasons – now numbering in the thousands – why all the outrage in the world can’t get a crane standing on top of Hayward.

Today’s Journal has a brief (second item) on some trouble that Millennium has run into in San Francisco. In that city, it owns a Four Seasons. It just stopped making payments on a $90 million mortgage. Millennium thinks the tactic will force its lenders to rework the terms of the loan; it could also prompt the loan’s servicer to seize the property from Millennium.

Why take the gamble? The hotel’s value has fallen off a cliff recently, dropping by $55 million, and Millennium now finds itself seriously underwater, owing way more on the building’s mortgage than the thing is actually worth.