Catalyst Lifestyles Sport Resort is fighting back after a federal bankruptcy court dismissed the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition.
“Sport Resort seeks to utilize Chapter 11 reorganization to ensure payment of its debts to its creditors, successful restructuring and the eventual completion of the development,” company officials said in a recent news release.
The planned complex, for 170 acres at Stagecoach Road and Marina Drive in Portage, was to include a 150-room hotel, a campsite, an indoor drive-in theater, restaurants and other amenities, including an artificial lake for wakeboarding. The centerpiece was to be a multiuse sports dome.
The $75 million project, which broke ground in April 2016 and was announced the previous year, has been mired in lawsuits and nine months after the groundbreaking, little if any work had been done on the property.
In November 2017, the company filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Indiana in Hammond. At the time, Sport Resort officials, including managing director Tony Czapla, said they welcomed the opportunity to avail the company of Chapter 11 reorganization, which was in its best interest as it continued to plot its course toward the successful development of the project.
The city of Portage’s Redevelopment Commission filed foreclosure proceedings against Sport Resort after the company missed a $600,000 annual payment to that body in June 2017.
According to the bankruptcy filing, the only asset held by Sport Resort at the time was the land it owns in Portage, valued at $17 million. Secured creditors included the Portage RDC, at $4.8 million, and the Porter County Treasurer’s office, for $9,619 in the form of a statutory lien.
The document listed another 16 unsecured creditors, including the engineering, planning and consulting firm Abonmarche, and a host of individuals and attorneys, several of whom are owed $100,000 or more. The total liabilities listed in the filing were $6.67 million.
Sport Resort officials filed an appeal of the bankruptcy ruling Aug. 8.
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