Tailfins Face Foreclosure
Within an year of its opening the Tailfin Amusement Park at Put-in-Bay is being foreclosed by the bank that had funded the project. However the owners of the park are optimistic that their efforts of trying to work out matters with National Bank of Oak Harbour will bear fruit. They owe the bank $3.6 million. The owners – Lisa and her husband Neff are confident the Park will open before summer. Next week they will be meeting the representatives of the bank.
Foreclosures were started on 11th January at Ottawa County Common Pleas Court. The bank wanted the ownership to be handed over to them as the borrowers had failed to continue with payments during the scheduled times. The legal representative of the bank, Martin Carrigan was unavailable for comment.
The couple and their company Ramm Holdings LLC took two loans on 19th January 2007 for $1.04 million and $760,000. Later they took a mortgage for $1.8 million. Last summer the park was opened with a spacious arcade, battling cages, go-carts, virtual bowling, eateries and other top attractions. In South Bass Island they added another item that became popular. The organizers complain that if they had had a full season business would have been good. Half a season is half the gains. The park ran till the end of October drawing customers.
The story of the park is just one instance of what is happening to the rest of the country – foreclosures. With the rise of interest people are unable to pay mortgage dues and lenders are left with no alternative but to initiate the legal process of foreclosure. The net result is that people are evicted of their home, speculators walk away abandoning houses and banks find themselves loaded with repossessed houses. These houses neither bring in money in the form of interest neither do they sell in a falling market. While in foreclosure the local municipality does not get any taxes. Since there are no buyers and more houses the real estate market is plunging. There is no money with the banks, the people or the government! Construction activity is at an all time low. Connected with it are many ancillary business units – a chain of works and all are affected from furniture shops to architects and engineers. This is happening all over the country. So recreation parks are just one of the victims of a situation where cash is not going around.
