Centerpoint Condo Towers in Tempe Back Up For Sale

The Centerpoint towers in Tempe are being listed with a realtor starting next week.

The history of the five-acre property and towers, and their financial collapse, were covered extensively in our October 15 edition.

Earlier this month, ML Manager LLC, bought the property for $8 million in a foreclosure auction. The company, made up of people who had invested in Mortgages Ltd., the billion-dollar-company that infamously collapsed in 2008, is owed $135 million on the property. No one else bid in the auction, in part because ML Manager intended to outbid any comers by using its leverage as a creditor.

Elliot Pollack, president of the board of ML Manager, tells New Times that more than 150 development companies from around the world have inquired about the towers.

Of course, what he didn't have to say is that every one was looking to buy the place for a real steal.

The buildings' value "as is" was estimated at $35 million last we heard. Besides the $135 million, contractors who worked on the towers before the gravy train ended are owed about $24 million.

Finishing the towers would cost tens of millions -- yet the cost of the individual units, some of which are only about 600 square feet, couldn't be set too high in today's real estate climate.

In an Arizona Republic article about the towers today, ML Manager CEO Mark Winkleman said tearing down the structures would be "unlikely."

He speculated that the towers could become "high-end rental property, student housing or assisted living," the paper says.

Assisted living? That makes us think of the senior-citizen-filled Courtyard Towers in downtown Mesa.

Maybe the future of Centerpoint is cantankerous old folks wheeled down to the lobby each evening to yell at the partiers on Mill Avenue.

The Courtyard Towers assisted living facility at Robson and Main in downtown Mesa: Is this the future of Centerpoint?