Though he had figuratively vowed a fight to the death, it appears bankrupt radio voice Tom Martino might be tossing in the towel in his fight against a bank that’s accused him of garnering millions in loans through all sorts of misdeeds and then defaulting on them.

Nearly at the end of a two-day trial in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week, Martino and First Citizen’s Bank have chosen to pursue a negotiated settlement rather than continue their in-court spat with mudslinging allegations of misconduct by each side.

You might recall First Citizen’s is the successor to Colorado Capital Bank, which gave Martino a pair of loans topping $3.7 million, one an unsecured line of credit and the other a personal guaranty of a loan, for a real estate project that eventually tanked.

First Citizens said Martino’s personal bankruptcy shouldn’t wipe the dept away while Martino challenged bank assertions that he’d falsified his personal financial papers when he applied for the loans, and had shifted personal assets to his wife’s name to hide them.

Martino’s vehemently denied any wrongdoing — even publicly challenged anyone to prove it — and said Colorado Capital was at fault for having filled out paperwork on his behalf, had him sign documents and did other nasty things to shore up the bank’s dirty books, including pressuring the self-styled consumer advocate to take on more debt.

In the end, though, Judge Michael Romero might never get to decide if the allegations are true or false. At their request, Romero stayed the trial so the two sides could work out a deal.

That’s not such a bad thing for Martino, who’s groused about the length of his bankruptcy — it’s in its 15th month — and really would like to move on, especially since every move in the case is fodder for more media coverage.

But there’s still another bank in the wings, International Bank, which wants its pound of …. cash … from the radioman. And though a separate agreement to release him from the bankruptcy looms, there’s also the matter of his credit card company, FIA Services, which did battle with him in court last month over lavish trips he took just before and after filing bankruptcy. That case is awaiting a decision by Romero.

Romero gave First Citizens and Martino about two weeks to work things out … or head back into trial and start slinging mud all over again.

The Denver Post,

Drilling in the Piceance Basin

While the oil-rich Niobrara shale in eastern Colorado has grabbed headlines, WPX Energy says it has been exploring the formation in the western part of the state and found new shale gas reserves.

After drilling two horizontal wells in the San Juan Basin in 2010 and finding an estimated 1.3 trillion cubic feet of proved, probable and possible reserves, WPX headed north the Piceance Basin.

“We had the right equipment, the right location so we moved to the Piceance,” said company spokeswoman Susan Alvillar.

WPX drilled a well to 10,300 feet, with a 4,600-foot horizontal bore through the shale in Garfield County and hit a potentially natural gas reserve.

The well produced 12 million cubic feet of gas per day for the first 30 days and more than doubled the WXP’s 18 trillion cubic feet equivalent reserves estimate, the company said.

Read more…

Even the most vigilant Southwest Airlines passengers — who check-in to their flights exactly 24 hours before departure — have to be prepared for the possibility of sitting in the loathsome middle seat near the rear of the plane, where there is no vacancy in the overhead storage bins, because the airline does not assign seats.

However, the trademark “first come, first serve” approach — which I have heard likened to glorified cattle herding — is about to change.

Matt York, The Associated Press

A Southwest Airlines plane in Phoenix.

Of course, only if you are willing to pay for it.

The Dallas-based airline announced Monday that passengers will now have the option of upgrading to the much sought after “A” boarding group. The catch? It has to be done at the gate, within 45 minutes of the flight, at a cost of $40, and only when positions are available.

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Thousands of organic egg-laying chickens at Grant Family Farms spared from a fate worse than … well, being eaten or ground up … have found a second wind in the adoptive hearts of hundreds of people inquiring about their welfare.

You see, about 5,000 of their brethren were unceremoniously slaughtered last month by owner Andrew Grant, he says because the investors who took control of his farm’s financial affairs refused to pay for the eggs they’d sold — about $34,000. That money was to be used for feed for the roughly 15,000 chickens that laid eggs in painted abandoned school buses.

The owner of the chickens, a company named Six Dog Investment and owned by Grant live-in buddy Nick DiGiorgio, raised the birds and let the farm sell the eggs.

Anyway, Grant said no money for feed meant too many birds for what was left of the feed, so he whacked the 5,000 and tossed them into a ditch. Turned them into compost, as it were.

Meanwhile, Grant sold off thousands more for $1 each — some dead, others not — and whittled the flock to a few thousand egg-laying birds. Problem is, he still needs to feed them.

That’s where Teresa Redmond-Ott stepped up, a local vegan and owner of a small animal sanctuary who’d already done some bird rescue for Grant. Ott’s thing was that old birds that really weren’t able to lay any more eggs than could justify their employ at the farm were being sold off to …. well, places that wanted them more for their tasty thighs than their laid eggs.
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Bear Creek At Telluride

Broker Tom Chapman and Ron Curry are planning a 1,300 acre, human-powered and helicopter ski area – pending federal approval – on land adjacent to Telluride ski area.

Real estate broker Tom Chapman and his partner Ron Curry tomorrow will announce plans to develop a 1,300-acre ski area adjacent to Telluride ski area. The Bear Creek at Telluride ski area will be anchored on the 103 acres of mining parcels the duo acquired in 2010.

A press release touts the “highest ski area in North America” and “Colorado’s newest ski area.” The area would offer human-powered skiing with optional helicopter and snowcats trips, all on avalanche controlled slopes. The bearcreekattellurideresort.com website notes that the helicopter, snowcats and avalanche control – and the entire resort, really – are subject to federal permit.

Curry said late Thursday that “the permit process has begun.”
The last new ski area permitted in Colorado – Silverton Mountain – took almost six years of intensive environmental review before the Bureau of Land Management approved unguided skiing on roughly the same number of acres as Chapman’s permit request, also accessed from privately owned land.

“Yes, sometimes these processes take more time than seems necessary, but the process cannot be avoided,” Curry said in an email. “We have taken the first step in the formal process.”

Curry said any skiers planning trips into Bear Creek, which is accessible from the Telluride ski area, should register by printing out and signing a legal form available on the website. The form is a waiver of liability and covenant not to sue Chapman and Curry’s Gold Hill Development Co. in case of any injury in the steep, deep, avalanche-prone slopes that tumble through narrow gullies into the box canyon of Telluride.

Access to the Bear Creek backcountry has been hindered since Chapman and Curry acquired the mining parcels in 2010. U.S. Forest Service district ranger Judy Schutza in December 2010 closed three backcountry gates connecting Telluride ski area with the popular Bear Creek drainage, citing potential trespass issues raised by Chapman and Curry. The closures required skiers to hike further to reach access points that led into Bear Creek and was not popular with the valley’s avid backcountry community.
“Most of you know the new landowners and a long-time landowner in Bear Cr. have asked us to remove the backcountry access points along Gold Hill Ridge that generally cause trespass across their private property. After much discussion with local and regional staff, I’ve made a decision to remove the three points that potentially cause trespass,” Norwood District Ranger Schutza wrote in an email to San Miguel County leaders in early December 2010.

Chapman is a renowned broker who developed a luxury home inside the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and has a history of planning development for remote alpine parcels. He and Curry acquired the Bear Creek mining parcels just as the Telluride ski area began developing avalanche control in the area and offering guided backcountry trips into Bear Creek. The ski area had acquired a small mining parcel that could potentially host a chairlift for the upper Bear Creek basin. When Chapman and Curry announced they had purchased the mining claims, they threatened legal action against skiers who traversed their land, prompting the access gate closures.

Curry said late Thursday that skiers now can travel across their land if they printed, signed and carried the forms.
“Otherwise they are trespassing. Skiing (with a signed waiver in hand) will cost nothing for the remainder of this season,” Curry said in an email. This “takes care of nearly every issue over which many have long argued.”

Chapman, a longtime property rights advocate, said in the press release that the Forest Service and ski area policy of allowing access from Telluride “enable trespass on private property, unfairly dumping unwanted liability onto Bear Creek private lands – lands that were there long before skiing became fashionable in Telluride, long before there was a Telski ski area, and long before there was a National Forest Service.”

The Curry-Chapman plan calls for a warming yurt on a removable deck. The announcement promises no lift towers, no grooming, no permanent structures and “no trace of wintertime skiing to the summertime user of Bear Creek.” The highest point will reach 13,555-foot Wasatch Mountain and the base will be located on their private land at 11,562 feet, which would make it the highest peak and base of any ski area in the country.

The press release also includes a classic Chapman twist: an alternative to the yurt and the ski area would be securing zoning for a 1,000 square-foot single family home – with “hand-adzed, dovetailed corner” – that would be “Telluride’s ultimate ski-in, ski-out homesite.”

“As such, it essentially makes upper Bear Creek a private ski area for the home owner’s family, guests and friends, with human powered skiing to any point on the basin ridgeline, as well as private land to private land helicopter skiing on owned private lands, leased private lands, or licensed private lands within Bear Creek.”

A federal bankruptcy judge today said an investment consortium that helped keep Grant Family Farms afloat last year could gather up what’s left of the harvest and sell it on the open market.

Though Localization Partners could seize the produce — the bulk of it made up of about 26,000 bushels of organic corn — it would have to first pay off a $174,600 tax lien filed by the Colorado Department of Revenue, Judge A. Bruce Campbell ruled.

Grant farms filed for bankruptcy liquidate in late December following years of financial problems. Even though the farm apparently had one of its best seasons last year — with more than $11 million in revenue — it was buried in about $10 million of debt, according to papers filed in bankruptcy court Wednesday.

LP loaned the farm about $1.5 million last year in part to make good on about 4,200 contracts it had with members of the farm’s Community-Supported Agriculture program, where buyers up front help defray some of the expense of producing a crop in return for a share of the harvest later.
Read more…

AP

Drilling and fracking produces protest signs as well as oil

Gov. John Hickenlooper made a strong defense of fracking and horizontal drilling on environmental grounds before the Denver Association of Business Economists Wednesday.

“Inexpensive natural gas has reduced our carbon emissions by a level no one is talking about,” he said. “If you are concerned about climate change in real time, inexpensive natural gas has been remarkably powerful.”

Although the U.S. did not sign the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global carbon emissions, the country has reduced its carbon output by more than the rest of the world combined and is now halfway to the reductions called for under the plan, he said.

Per capita carbon emission levels in the United States are down to Eisenhower era levels, he said.

Read more…

Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post

Union Station

Kresher Capital LLC is creating a footprint in Denver’s LoDo and RiNo neighborhoods, completing three acquisitions totaling $13.5 million within 45 days.

Kresher closed on properties at 1720 Wynkoop and 3001 Walnut at the end of 2012 and is set to close on a property at 3012 Huron in the coming weeks.

The most notable of the deals was the acquisition of commercial retail totaling $7.1 million at 1720 Wynkoop. The units front Union Station and include tenants such as Venice, Morton’s Steakhouse, The Salon and Paradise Cleaners.

Another notable acquisition was done with Epic Brewing Co. The Salt Lake City microbrewery signed a lease with Kresher Capital, concurrently purchasing the building and allowing the brewery to expand into Colorado. Epic signed a 20,000-square-foot lease and plans for production and distribution, as well as a tap room at the location.

Kresher says it will close soon on a fully leased, 29,000-square-foot office property at 3012 Huron in the Prospect Park neighborhood. The property includes adjoining parking spaces.

Ryan Arnold, vice president with Jones Lang LaSalle’s Denver team, represented Kresher in the acquisition of 3012 Huron and was instrumental in the closing of 3001 Walnut.

Kresher — a private, equity investment group focused on real estate lending and acquisition opportunities which has offices in Colorado, Florida and New York — said it hopes to continue growing its Colorado market share.

“Kresher is continually looking to expand its real estate acquisition and lending business in Colorado,” said Kresher’s Patrick Dunn. “We are happy with the risk-adjusted returns offered in the Colorado marketplace as evident from the performance of both our lending and direct investment platforms.

“We are very excited about investment opportunities in certain metro areas, and Denver is right at the top. Kresher fully expects to substantially expand our lending business in conjunction with closing on opportunistic real estate investments in the Denver area over the coming years.”

Courtesy photo

Churchill Downs

MIG Real Estate LLC, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based real estate investment company, has acquired Churchill Downs, a 168-unit multifamily community at 8400 East Yale Ave. in southeast Denver.

The purchase marks MIG Real Estate’s eighth acquisition in Colorado.

The southeast Denver submarket has consistently seen vacancy rates under 6 percent over the last eight quarters, according to the Von Stroh Denver Vacancy & Rent Survey. In addition to the low vacancy rates, rents in the southeast Denver submarket have increased a reported 6.2 percent year-over-year, according to CBRE Economic Advisors.

Churchill Downs offers one-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans with separate storage spaces, pantries, walk-in closets, private patios or balconies, and washers and dryers in all units. Select apartment homes offer vaulted ceilings and gas fireplaces. Additional amenities include an outdoor swimming pool, children’s playground and community BBQ grills.

“We remain optimistic about the underlying fundamentals of Denver’s multifamily housing market,” said Greg Merage, MIG’s CEO. “This property is a great addition to our portfolio due to its location within the Denver metro area. With job growth on the rise and low vacancy rates, MIG Real Estate will continue to seek value-add investment opportunities in the Denver market.”

Doug Andrews, Jeff Hawks, Terrance Hunt, Shane Ozment and Jason Wine of Apartment Realty Advisors (ARA) represented the seller in the transaction. MIG Real Estate represented itself. Alliance Residential will manage the property for MIG.

Since 2009, MIG has completed more than $650 million in acquisitions through direct purchases of office, retail, hotel and multifamily properties in major markets in the Sunbelt and western United States.

The holiday snow in the high country arrived too late to rescue lodgekeepers in December but boosted bookings for January and February.

The latest Mountain Travel Research Program – or MTRiP – survey of 160 property management companies in 16 western resort communities shows December 2012 lodging occupancy finished 7.9 percent behind the previous December. But the average daily room rate climbed for the 19th consecutive month, increasing 2.6 percent over December 2011.

Still, the late snow that followed a dismally dry November and early December helped. Reservations heading into December were down 12.3 percent.
“What a difference a month makes,” said Ralf Garrison, director of MTRiP, in a statement released Wednesday. “Mother Nature finally delivered some much needed snow from coast to coast just in time for the Christmas holidays and the fresh powder really helped fill some December lodging vacancies at ski resorts as well as generating buzz and bookings for January and February.”

The snow also stirred bookings for the rest of the season, with December bookings through May up 10.4 percent over last season. January bookings climbed 3.5 percent and February is up 8.6 percent.

On Tuesday, Vail Resorts reported a strong holiday, with visitation up 2 percent through January 13, lift ticket revenue up 4.3 percent, ski school revenue up 2.9 percent, dining up 9 percent and retail revenue up 7.7 percent over the same period last season.

Still, the holiday boost wasn’t enough to overcome the dry start to the season. On Tuesday Vail Resorts lowered its early-season projections of $260 million to $270 million in resort EBITDA for the season to $244 million to $254 million. Still that represents a 19 percent to 24 percent increase over last season.

“While we are very pleased with our strong holiday season performance, the challenging early season contributed to season-to-date results that were below what we had anticipated in our guidance originally issued in September 2012,” said Vail Resorts chief Rob Katz in the statement released Tuesday. “As a result, we do not believe we can fully make up those shortfalls during the remainder of our fiscal year. “