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A lender that stumped up $47.4 million to help Walter Bowen refinance part of the Broadway Tower on Southwest Broadway in downtown Portland sued the developer in November, alleging a default.
CLF II-SL HV LLC, an entity registered in Delaware, sued Bowen, a trust in his name, and an LLC that he controls, asking the court to appoint a receiver to take over the property and then sell it to repay the loan. The suit applies only to the the Hotel Vance, which occupies a portion of the building.
The Oregonian first reported the lawsuit, filed on Nov. 22, last week.
The complaint suggests financial trouble for Bowen, who developed the 35-story Block 216, a tower in downtown Portland’s West End that contains office space, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Ritz-Carlton Residences. Lawyers for Bowen at Black Helterline LLP didn’t return emails seeking comment.
Bowen, founded his company, BPM Real Estate Group, in 1977. He started building office towers and hotels after developing and buying 44 senior living communities, then selling 16 of them to diversify.
BPM broke ground on Block 216 on Southwest 10th Avenue between Washington and Alder in July 2019, eight months before COVID-19 sent millions of employees home from their offices nationwide and 10 months before the George Floyd protests turned into riots, prompting downtown shops and offices to board up windows.
Bowen’s timing at Broadway Tower was equally poor. An entity he controls paid $132.3 million for the building in January 2020, the same month that the first COVID-19 case was documented in the U.S.
According to the November lawsuit, trouble at the Broadway Tower started last year. Because of “underperformance of the property, the lender on July 31, 2023, demanded that Bowen’s firm deposit $2.5 million in a reserve to cover interest on the loan within 30 days.
Bowen agreed to pony up the reserves in installments, the complaint says. His company made the first payment, of $600,000, by the deadline of Sept. 11, 2023, but missed a second one for $1.9 million, due on Nov. 13, 2023.
Financial statements sent to the lender, CLF II-SL HV LLC, in December of last year “indicated a net worth lower than required” by their loan agreements, the complaint says. Bowen continued to miss payments, despite changes that gave him for time, the complaint says.
In October of this year, CLF II-SL HV LLC says it sent Bowen a notice of default. Bowen missed another payment in November, and failed to make an insurance payment, the complaint says, prompting the lender to sue.
Details about the lender were unavailable because CLF II-SL HV LLC is registered in Delaware, where LLCs are not required to disclose their members publicly.