PROVIDENCE — The Providence Redevelopment Agency foreclosed Friday morning on the iconic Wedding Cake House, a well-known property at 514 Broadway, as the first step of a process intended to find a new owner who will restore the historic mansion.

Dean Ponte, a professional auctioneer with Irving Schechtman & Co. Inc., opened the bidding shortly after 10 a.m., announcing that it was based on the default of a $350,000 loan made in 2011 by the PRA to Community Works Rhode Island, a now-defunct community development agency.

John M. Boehnert, an attorney representing PRA, opened the bidding at $463,000. Donald D. Gralnek, executive director of the agency, explained that the higher bid represented other costs the PRA has incurred involving the house, including legal costs. There were no other bids, so the auction only took a couple of minutes.

After years of vacancy and deterioration, the mansion, formally known as Kendrick-Prentice-Tirocchi House (1867), popularly known as the Wedding Cake House because of its ornate exterior, has been on the Providence Preservation Society’s Most Endangered Properties list in 2010, 2012, 2015 and again in 2016.

Clark Schoettle of the Providence Revolving Fund, who attended the foreclosure auction, has been at the forefront of efforts to minimally maintain the house until a new owner can be found. In 2015, emergency repairs were made to the mansion’s tower, which had been leaning about 10 degrees. The work also raised the tower by about 5 inches, Schoettle said.

In 2014, Community Works Rhode Island won $197,050 in state historic tax credits for the restoration, which may be transferred to a new owner. Those credits would have expired if the work conducted last year hadn't been done.

ONE Neighborhood Builders (formerly Olneyville Housing Corporation) took over the assets of Community Works Rhode Island in an effort to help detangle the group's obligations. Community Works had purchased the Wedding Cake House out of foreclosure for $210,000 in 2011 and at one time planned to convert the mansion into four apartments, including three subsidized low-income units. The organization had secured almost $900,000 in state, federal and local subsidies, Schoettle said, but the project, estimated to cost between $1.6 million and $1.8 million, turned out to be more than Community Works could handle.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development decided that too much public money was tied up in the project and retracted roughly $700,000 in combined federal grants.

Schoettle said the foreclosure is part of plan to clear the title to make it possible financially for a new investor to step in and rehabilitate the property.

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