STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Staten Island Hotel filed for bankruptcy today in an apparent last ditch effort to stop a planned foreclosure sale of the Graniteville hotel.
SI Hotel Holding LLC, whose principal Leib Puretz is already in foreclosure on several signature Island projects, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today to reorganize the 187-room hotel and prevent a courthouse sale of the building, which had been scheduled for tomorrow. Bankruptcy temporarily halts the planned auction.
Federal court filings show that the Richmond Avenue hotel has between 50 and 99 creditors, estimated assets of more than $10 million and liabilities of more than $10 million.
The hotel is not the only casualty of an inhospitable economy. Other court documents estimate Puretz is in foreclosure with more than $86 million in loans for some of the biggest developments to be built or planned in the borough in recent years.
Many of those loans were short-term and due payable in a less than a year - something that proved impossible to do when credit markets dried up last fall.
A hotel worker answering the phone today said staff is aware of the bankruptcy but it's business as usual there, with the hotel even selling out rooms some nights.
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