By TERRY BRLAS

Strongsville Post editor

If you drive on Howe Road near SouthPark Mall or enter the mall off Howe you may have noticed a plot of land with no activity and surrounded by fencing. If your memory is top-notch you may recall that a daycare facility was being erected there a number of months ago. You may be asking yourself "what happened?"

Timberstone Group out of Toledo was the developer that owned the piece of property off Howe, as well as Renaissance Park by Whitney and Pearl roads in front of Lowe's. The real estate developers filed a 340-page petition in September 2009 seeking Chapter 7 liquidation of debts in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Toledo.

The biggest creditor listed is Huntington Bank of Columbus, which is owed $38 million in connection with commercial real estate projects. The petition lists 30 real estate partnerships in which the firm was involved including those in Strongsville. Court filings showed that Michael Denman, owner of Timberstone Group, has had no income since Dec. 31, 2006.

"When Timberstone went under they lost control of both of those properties," Brent Painter, economic development manager for the city of Strongsville, said. "It happens. We're lucky that it hasn't happened much in Strongsville."

Construction of the KinderCare daycare off of Howe Road was proceeding on schedule when Timberstone filed for Chapter 7. Timberstone was going to own the building and lease it back to KinderCare.

"It was a perfect storm of bad timing," Painter said. "It's unfortunate it happened the way it did. Timberstone made some bad moves and it sunk the company, which affected us."

Because the mostly erected building was left to the elements it began to look shoddy. It was eventually torn down and fencing was placed around the area due to safety concerns.

There has not been much interest in the Howe Road property, only two or three mild inquiries, according to Painter.

"It all comes back to the economy. A lot of projects that want to start are having a hard time getting financing," he said. "It takes a special project with strong financials to make it work."

Renaissance Park is owned by Integra Bank, headquartered in Evansville, Ind. Lowe's was part of the Renaissance Park project from the beginning and was completed prior to Timberstone going out of business.

"It makes things trickier when a bank controls the property," Painter said. "If the developer didn't have the problems they did I would imagine Renaissance Park wouldn't be fully developed, but would be farther along than it is."

Lewanski Development of Cleveland was the original owner of the Renaissance Park property. They eventually sold it to Timberstone.

"This is obviously not the way the city wanted to see this happen," Painter said. "Usually you have developers that are from the area, if not Strongsville. Obviously we didn't know Timberstone as well as some others. It wasn't the city's choice that they purchase the property.