Unity Temple Facing Foreclosure is Selling Property

March 18th, 2009 | Tags: Foreclosure

The story of Unity Temple is about a project that has gone awry. This has left Unity Temple facing foreclosure and many other lawsuits to sell its property. It is close to downtown Santa Cruz and is being sold for $1.85 million.

The church however will not suspend services but will continue with it and events at a different venue – 407 Broadway. The community has been meeting here since 1955. The leaders of the church are regrouping with the aim being to grow the congregation again after clearing debts, dismissing litigation and having reached “a very friendly lease” for the coming 18 months.

The President of the Unity Temple board of directors, Mike Elison said, “It\’s nice to not have lost everything. It\’s been quite a roller coaster.”

California Coastal Resorts is the purchaser – it being a limited liability firm that had been created last February. Tejal Sood represented it in the state filings. She runs the firm with her family from Hampton Inn on Ocean Street and other locales. She said that they did not have any immediate plans of developing the unit – right now it was just an investment. She explained that her father thought that this was the right step to take considering the mood of the market.

There had been many offers on the property said Derek Timm who is an attorney as well as a broker working with Montalvo Homes. The unit comprises of 7,020 sq ft main church standing on less than a acre. The property could be developed for building many types of residential complexes, commercial blocs of medium density or for educational institutions, hotels, nursing homes or day care joints.

A bank had appraised the unit in 2008 for $3.5 million as real estate listings. The purchasers “may end up either converting existing building or building something new in a few years,” commented Timm.

According to the very complex deal, Unity will retain many of the internal fixtures and fittings like the seating and kitchen arrangement and accessories when eventually it will leave the place. For Unity a tumultuous chapter of finance will close. It had hampered this congregational home for over a year. Recently attendance at the church had sharply fallen. This had prompted the church to think of expanding its youth facilities so as to increase the numbers. The youth facility has been languishing in a single room.