Powderhorn developers ordered to pay $1.6M

COEUR d’ALENE — A California company with plans to develop a peninsula north of Harrison must pay the bank $1.6 million and almost $200 per day as part of a foreclosure finalized last week in Coeur d’Alene’s First District Court.

First District Judge Richard Christensen ordered that Powderhorn Ranch LLC pay $1.6 million to the Columbia Trust Company, plus the per diem rate of $192 and attorney fees of $5,000 to satisfy an eight-year-old loan, or the land will be sold at a Kootenai County sheriff’s auction.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe and Charles R. Blakely are also named as defendants in the suit.

The suit stems from a 2010 loan that Powderhorn received from developer Heartland LLC of Seattle, another developer on the peninsula. Powderhorn was declared in default in 2014. Heartland transferred its interest to the Columbia Trust Co. a year later, according to the suit.

The Powderhorn peninsula, a square-mile chunk of high land that slips precipitously into Lake Coeur d’Alene across the Coeur d’Alene River delta from Harrison, was slated almost a decade ago for a golf course community that did not materialize.

Heartland development includes properties on the peninsula’s northwest side and around its pine-fringed slopes. But the bulk of the land — once farmed — has sat idle.

The golf course community similar to The Club at Black Rock, and Gozzer Ranch, both of which are on Lake Coeur d’Alene, that was penciled for the high plateau, was stymied by neighbors who protested permitting and zone change efforts.

In 2010 Powderhorn Ranch LLC owned about 1,000 acres of the peninsula, while other developers owned the remaining large Powderhorn parcels. Powderhorn Ranch was managed by Jim Foxx and it had a Palm Desert, Calif., address when the debt was incurred.