CHUCK HUMEL / CHRONICLE

Avalon Beach LLC has purchased this land for a high-rise condominium project.

Units on Route 6 would go for $350,000 and up each

LORAIN — A developer is planning to build a high-rise lakefront condominium complex off U.S. Route 6, and the units could start at $350,000 each, Lorain Councilman Dan Given said Wednesday.

The developer, Avalon Beach LLC, purchased about four acres of land for $2.2 million in February for the project. It is still hoping to acquire about 0.19 acres of land, a parcel that originally had been described as a city park in a 1922 development plan, according to county records.

And that’s where things get complicated.

When Charles Brenner filed a plan for a housing development with the county recorder’s office 86 years ago, the paperwork transferred only the streets to city ownership, not the land earmarked for a park.

So the city recently filed suit, asking a county judge to straighten out that long-ago error and declare it the owner of the park.

“They intended it to be street and park, but they put it only as street,” Assistant Lorain Law Director James Walther said.

The lawsuit, if successful, will prevent Brenner’s descendents, whom Walther was unable to locate, from making any claim on the land, which the city is considering selling to Avalon Beach.

Walther said state law clearly favors the city in the lawsuit. The law states that once a piece of land is marked on a development map, known as a plat, as a park and filed with the county, it becomes city property regardless of whether the city chooses to do anything with it, he said.

“All we’re doing is cleaning up the title,” Walther said.

Brenner’s plans, which included streets that exist on paper only, were never developed.

Given, D-at large, said he’s seen preliminary plans for the high-rise project but hasn’t discussed selling the land to the developer. The project remains in the preliminary stages, he said.

It’s unclear whether the Avalon Beach condominiums, if built, will sell, because of the poor housing market in the area, Given said.

“Right now, making any sort of real estate investment is risky,” he said. “But on the other hand, they’re not making lakefront property anymore.”

The proposed development is just west of La Cote de Lac — part of a $10 million development that sold so poorly that project’s developer had to auction off the condominiums in November and sold only two units, both to a North Carolina man who bought them as an investment for when the housing market improves. The buyer paid $210,000 each for the two properties — $90,000 less than the $300,000 asking price.

The land the city claims to own, valued at $18,300 by the county auditor’s office, which also lists it as a city park, would constitute a small portion of the condominium project’s property and isn’t as big as it appears on county records, Walther said.

Some of the land has crumbled into Lake Erie, he said. Walther said there are dozens of small pieces of property scattered around the city that have been dedicated as city parks but never used because they’re either too small or of little use to the city.

“This one has no functional use to us as a park, especially since half of it is now underwater,” Walther said.

Robert Schuler, who is listed as Avalon Beach’s agent in state paperwork filed when the company formed late last year, is also the one who sold the company part of the land, according to county records.

Schuler began buying up the land in 2000, purchasing seven parcels for $235,000. He sold the land to Avalon Beach in February for $1.135 million. Avalon Beach purchased four other parcels from Frank Stydnicki in February for $1.065 million, according to county records.

Schuler did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

 

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