Imperial Market property sold in foreclosure sale

Developers James Murnane and Geoffrey Jones will develop the old Imperial Sugar Char House into a 120-room aloft hotel. ( J. Patric Schneider / For the Chronicle ) Developers James Murnane and Geoffrey Jones will develop the old Imperial Sugar Char House into a 120-room aloft hotel. ( J. Patric Schneider / For the Chronicle ) Photo: J. Patric Schneider, Freelance Photo: J. Patric Schneider, Freelance Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close Imperial Market property sold in foreclosure sale 1 / 33 Back to Gallery

A historic Sugar Land property set to be redeveloped into a mixed-use project with retail and office space, housing and a hotel has been foreclosed on by its lender.

The property, the original site of the Imperial Sugar factory, was sold to SLP-90A Ltd. at an Oct. 2 foreclosure auction, according to documents filed with Fort Bend County.

The site has been slated for the Imperial Market project, an 850,000-square-foot mixed-use development with shops and restaurants, office space and apartments, and a boutique hotel.

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BancorpSouth, which in 2016 made a $13.9 million loan on the property to Imperial Market Development LLC, sold that note to SLP-90A Ltd., an entity with ties to Houston HVAC company Hunton Group or its owners, documents show. Neither the bank nor Hunton Group could be reached.

Geoffrey Jones, one of the developers, said the property will be conveyed back to Imperial Market Development once a construction loan is secured. A substitute trustee's deed filed with the county cites a default, however, Jones said his group has been meeting its obligations.

He said the project is around 60 percent preleased, with Alamo Drafthouse Cinema as its lead tenant. Construction, which has been delayed, is expected to start at the beginning of next year.

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"Retail leasing occurred more slowly than we originally anticipated," Jones said. "Construction lenders were influenced by the downturn in the energy industry and for quite some time were not making mixed-use loans in the metropolitan Houston area."