SEVIERVILLE — A little more than four years after a bank issued a note for $28 million on portions of the Belz Factory Outlets Mall, the Pigeon Forge property sold for $4.1 million in a foreclosure auction Tuesday on the steps of the courthouse.
That bid came from CB Pigeon Forge Outlet LLC, a Delaware company. Officials from the trustee’s office said the written bid was submitted before the auction.
If any representatives of the company were present, they did not identify themselves to officials from the substitute trustee’s office.
More than a dozen people waited about 50 minutes in the shaded area around the armed forces memorial while a representative of the substitute trustee read the notice of sale on the property, but most appeared to be there to hear the purchase price of the property and find out who bought it. None of the people present offered a bid.
“That notice of sale is the largest I’ve seen,” said Jason Shade, an attorney from the firm that acted as substitute trustee.
CB Pigeon Forge Outlet LLC was created Oct. 26 of last year, according to records kept by the Delaware Secretary of State. The state of Delaware doesn’t require limited liability corporations to list their officers or file annual reports; the only contact information for the business was a registered agent.
A spokesperson for the agent said they could not provide information on the company; the agent is used as the address of record in the event a lawsuit is filed against the company.
Shade had a copy of documents showing that CB Pigeon Forge Outlet LLC had taken over interest in the property, although the transfer of ownership wasn’t recorded at the Sevier County Register of Deeds on Tuesday afternoon after the auction. He said he didn’t know the relationship between the company and Capmark Bank, the Utah-based bank that held the note.
Officials with the county property assessor’s office said the property described in the notice appeared to include the original Belz Outlet building, and stores across from it on Teaster Road, but not an adjacent annex that once included Old Time Pottery.
Shade said he couldn’t confirm whether that was the case, or if the sale involved all the property.
It remains unclear what the transaction means for tenants at the mall.
Belz is one of the oldest outlet centers in the county. Pigeon Forge Associates developed the mall, and that company leased and managed the property from 1987 to 1996. Pigeon Forge Associates sold the property to BVT/WELP Pigeon Forge L.P, and that company managed it until 2007, when it was sold to FOM Pigeon Forge.
By then, the number of tenants in the mall had started to dwindle. After that came the national recession, as well as a 2009 fire at Old Time Pottery. The one-time anchor tenant never reopened.
The annex where the pottery store was located was apparently not included in the sale.
The other annex, across the street from the original building, appeared to be the most popular in recent years, with tenants in all or most of its stores through the downturn. That property was included in the sale, officials said.
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