Massive Bellevue development files for bankruptcy

A company charged with developing more 1,100 acres in Bellevue has filed for bankruptcy.

Nashville Biltmore LP, the company created by Texas-based JMJ Holdings to develop the mixed-use Biltmore Ridges project, filed for Chapter 11 protection in a Texas federal court last week. According to filing, the partnership has between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities with the same range in assets.

According to JMJ's web site, Biltmore Ridges was planned as a "a 2,000 square-acre residential and commercial planned development ... (with) high-end retail, hotel, office, multi family and single family uses."

Roughly $300 million in infrastructure improvements to the property were to be funded through a novel special assessment [2] approved by the Metro Council in October 2011. The company was also party to a three-way deal [3] with Metro and the state to add interstate ramps and widen a secondary street.

The initial bankruptcy filing lists numerous creditors — mostly architects, engineers, law firms and other professional services types, as well as a handful of tax-collecting entities. Among those debts are more than $90,000 in property taxes, which held up a recent Industrial Development Board vote [4] on bonding for the project, according to the Nashville Business Journal.