{"id":40359,"date":"2025-08-01T22:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T22:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/40359\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T22:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T22:06:09","slug":"coalville-luxury-golf-community-buyer-backs-off-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/40359\/","title":{"rendered":"Coalville luxury golf community buyer backs off deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Cox of the east coast real estate investment firm The Federated Companies<\/a> told KPCW his formal offer to buy Wohali is off the table.<\/p>\n

The golf community in western Coalville had paused residential construction amid layoffs and tens of millions in debt, according to lawsuits from creditors and contractors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cox confirmed his firm had expressed interest in purchasing the property in recent months. He spoke about it publicly<\/a> at a Coalville City Council meeting June 23 but said the negotiations have fallen apart in the weeks since.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have also had discussions with the project’s lenders, club members, the city of Coalville and other parties. We have spent a considerable amount of time onsite and believe that we understand the complexities that are preventing this project from moving forward,\u201d Cox said in an email to KPCW Aug. 1. \u201cWhile we remain interested in the property, we have been unable to reach an agreement with the various stakeholders including the project lenders and have withdrawn our formal expression of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox said The Federated Companies is watching the situation as it continues to unfold and considers Wohali \u201ca world class golf course.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if there is interest in Wohali from other buyers, but Coalville Community Development Director Don Sargent previously told KPCW the project is unlikely to fail long-term since other investors will see an opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s essentially not an uncommon situation,\u201d Sargent said July 30. \u201cMajor developers do have these kind of situations come up when there’s so much capital investment in infrastructure, and Wohali is no exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summit County residents have seen a similar situation play out before with the Promontory development.<\/p>\n

NBC News<\/a> reported Credit Suisse had loaned Promontory developer Francis Najalfi\u2019s Pivotal Group up to $350 million in 2005, but the project bankrupted in 2007.<\/p>\n

Pivotal Group bought the gated golf community back for $30 million at auction.<\/p>\n

None of the seven companies affiliated with Wohali, nor any of its three founders, had filed for bankruptcy in Utah as of Aug. 1, but the project faces millions of dollars in lawsuits.<\/p>\n

One of the resort\u2019s founding partners, John Kaiser, told KPCW Aug. 1 \u201cthe buyer remains interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we continue to work to find a solution, we intend to take action to avoid foreclosure,\u201d he wrote in an email. \u201cOur primary focus is to protect the jobs we have created and ensuring that all of our contractors and other creditors are given a seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaiser said he couldn\u2019t give specifics on Wohali\u2019s next steps.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s biggest lawsuit is from foreign investors who lent $79.2 million through the federal government\u2019s EB-5 program, which gives investors paths to permanent residency in the U.S. It\u2019s unclear who Wohali\u2019s foreign investors are.<\/p>\n

Repeated efforts to reach the resort\u2019s other founding partners David Boyden and Thomas Cottone either directly or through an attorney over the past week have been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

Separately, Cottone is suing Kaiser and one of his associates<\/a> in 3rd District Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan Cox of the east coast real estate investment firm The Federated Companies told KPCW his formal offer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-40359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}