Deal to Buy Naples Dissolves

Well, that didn’t take very long.

Less than a month after publicly announcing that they were in the due diligence phase of a purchase and sale agreement to buy Naples, word came this week that CrossHarbor Capital Partners, an investment firm from Boston, and BondRok Partners, LLC, an LA-based development outfit pegged to potentially build the beloved and mostly pristine Gaviota property, have decided to pull out of the tentative deal.

Expressing his pleasure about the news, Naples Coalition lawyer Marc Chytilo, the man who represents the organization that has been working to prevent a build-out of the property since former owner Matt Osgood looked to plop several dozen McMansions on the land, opined Tuesday, “Our view has always been that this property should never be developed and this only confirms our belief.”

Since the spring of 2010, Missouri’s First Bank has owned the Naples property after Osgood defaulted on his $63 million loan with the bank. And while there have been a handful of rumored suitors for the property and its approved development plan, the BondRok/CrossHarbor camp was the first to be serious enough to actually take meetings with county officials in recent weeks.

Though calls to First Bank and CrossHarbor by The Santa Barbara Independent were not returned as of press time, according to sources within the county, the purchase agreement was “mutually terminated” by both the would-be developers and the bank.