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Locally based Broadbent Co.'s legal battles with lenders have escalated, pushing one of its 34 strip malls into bankruptcy and prompting Huntington National Bank and PNC Bank to sue to collect principal owed on loans tied to four more.
The suits collectively involve more than $10 million lenders say is owed by the 38-year-old firm, long one of the city's biggest developers of shopping centers.
The legal spats come at a time the recession has sapped demand for shopping center space and reduced the value of the underlying real estate. Listings on Broadbent's Web site show one-fifth of the company's 3.6-million-square-foot portfolio as immediately available for lease. The problem is most acute at five strip malls that are less than half full.
Broadbent's Wadsworth Crossing in Westminster, Colo, for example, is empty, and its Fleming Island Retail Shoppes outside Jacksonville, Fla., has 50-percent occupancy. Locally, occupancy is 31 percent at Washington Place, 34 percent at Plainfield Village and 41 percent at Clearwater Crossing.
The firm, originally known as Skinner & Broadbent, prospered for years by snapping up land and building shopping centers near regional malls. The 120-employee company has developed self-storage facilities and strip malls in six states. Twenty-six of its centers are in the Indianapolis area.
The court fights began...