LOS ALTOS — A lender is poised to seize a Los Altos site where a high-profile residential development of nearly 200 homes was being planned, public records show.
As now envisioned, the project would have added 196 residential units to the community, but it’s now unclear when — or if — the project will be built.
The residential project’s future turned fuzzy after the lender, Loancore Capital Credit REIT, filed a notice of default on March 18 that warned the property could be taken by the lender.
Now, the lender has scheduled a public auction of the site, documents filed on June 21 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office show.
The auction is due to occur in late July, according to the filing.
The property, located at 5150 El Camino Real in Los Altos, is slated to be sold to the “highest bidder,” the trustee’s sale notice stated.
However, with such auctions, if no bidder appears on the spot at the time of the auction, the property often is formally sold to the lender through a trustee’s deed. This procedure then accomplishes the foreclosure of the loan.
Then, since financial firms typically have little appetite to develop or own a foreclosed property on a long-term basis, the lender often seeks a permanent buyer.
The borrower of the delinquent loan is 5150 ECR Group, an affiliate that is controlled by Dutchints Development and its principal executive, local developer Vahe Tashjian.
In 2018, Loancore Capital Credit provided a $42 million loan to 5150 ECR Group.
That loan was provided at the time that the Dutchints Development affiliate paid $48 million for the 3.8-acre site where the high-density homes were to be built.
“The ownership group remains committed to delivering this project to the community,” Tashjian said in an interview in March 2021 with this news organization.
Bay Area cities, including Los Altos, are under pressure to usher in their share of completed residential units in the next few years to help tackle the nine-county region’s severe housing shortfalls.
“Overall, the project reflects a desired and appropriate development intensity for the commercial thoroughfare district and the El Camino Real corridor,” Sean Gallegos, an associate city planner, wrote in a 2019 report prepared for the Los Altos City Council.
The report also endorsed the number of units in the project.
The development would consist of two five-story condominium buildings with 172 units along El Camino Real and two three-story townhouse buildings along the rear of the project with 24 units, Gallegos wrote in the report.
“The goal is to create a great place to live while promoting sustainability, walkability, and the use of mass transit,” Tashjian and Dutchints Development wrote as part of a proposal submitted in late 2018 to Los Altos officials.
