The company redeveloping the north end of the former Charleston Naval Base is facing a $23.8 million foreclosure lawsuit.

Three lenders sued last week in Charleston County court to foreclose on much of the property The Noisette Co. is redeveloping, The Associated Press reported Monday, citing court documents. The suit asks that the mortgaged property be sold and that a receiver be appointed to collect rents and hold them while the case is pending, according to the AP.

The plaintiffs and the amounts they say they are owed are SPG CDE Subfund A LLC, $12.9 million; Urban Development Fund II, $6.9 million; and Capmark Finance Inc., $4 million, The Post and Courier reported.

The suit covers about 240 of the 340 acres Noisette owns on the old base, the company said in a statement Monday. Its other parcels were not part of the mortgage debt, the newspaper reported.

A loan that came due

The lenders agreed in August 2006 to give Noisette a $23.8 million bridge loan, with the balance due two years later, according to The Post and Courier. Noisette did not repay it, and the lenders have been unwilling to extend it, the newspaper reported.

Noisette said in its statement that it has been unable to refinance.

“As a result of the crisis in the capital markets, it has been extremely difficult for businesses to obtain financing for their development investments,” the statement said, according to the AP. The company said it is still pursuing other financing and “believes that can still occur prior to a final disposition of the foreclosure proceeding.”

Chief Executive Officer John Knott told The Post and Courier the company continues to talk with Capmark, which provided the loan, “and we’re confident this will be resolved.”

What the lenders want sold

The mortgaged land is mostly the large parking areas near Spruill Avenue and the rolling hills where much of the base’s officers’ housing was built, The Post and Courier reported. It does not include some of the better-known buildings along Noisette Boulevard, such as 10 Storehouse Row, Noisette’s offices and the Powerhouse.

The parking areas are also where Noisette planned major infrastructure work. That plan included a large drainage basin just east of Spruill Avenue, along with road and utility work, the newspaper reported. North Charleston recently approved a multimillion-dollar deal that would let Noisette start the work and be reimbursed from increased property tax collections in the redeveloped area.

Knott said the work has been engineered, designed and bid, and is waiting on the company’s efforts to secure new financing.

“We’re ready to break ground,” he said.

Rail and recession

Knott told The Post and Courier the company was close to financing that would pay off the bridge loan when the Legislature began pushing for more rail traffic through the Noisette site to serve the new State Ports Authority terminal being built on the base’s southern end. A state Commerce Department-sponsored plan cited a Noisette parcel as a possible site for an intermodal yard served by trucks and trains, the newspaper reported.

Knott said the company’s struggles are partly the result of last fall’s collapse in the nation’s capital and housing markets, but added that “the rail situation did not help matters.”

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said he expected the suit because he had heard the company was having trouble finding new backers.

“They were hoping to still find investors’ financing,” Summey said, “but in this market, right now, it’s almost impossible.”

Summey said the suit does not change his opposition to the rail route, which he said would violate an agreement the city has with the State Ports Authority.

“My argument has always been that the Noisette project will be successful whether it’s the Noisette Co. or not,” Summey said. “That’s still the position I hold.”

Eight years in

Knott, Summey and other officials unveiled their public-private partnership in March 2001. Noisette bought about 340 acres of the former base from the city for $9.6 million in 2003, according to The Post and Courier. The Navy Yard project is part of a larger $1 billion public-private effort to revitalize 3,000 acres in North Charleston’s urban core, the AP reported.

The project ran into early setbacks, including delays in transferring base property through the Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority and the Legislature’s 2002 decision to put a new container terminal on the base’s southern end, the newspaper reported. In March 2005, city officials learned from The Post and Courier that the company had taken out more than $3 million in loans without telling the city. The two sides later mended fences.

Some neighbors are skeptical.

“This is the ninth year, and I don’t see anything that really has been done over there in the nine years,” City Councilman Bob King told the newspaper.

Gayle Frampton, president of the North East Park Circle Civic Club, said Noisette had good ideas about energy conservation and sustainability and benefited from getting the base property from the city at a low price.

“I’ve always been concerned that they came to town without the money to do what they said they were going to do, without having the North Charleston taxpayers underwrite some of that,” she said.

Summey said he has no regrets about how the city handled the project.

“I think we’ve lived up to the obligations we’ve had. It’s just one of those things,” he said.