The Serenata Beach Club in Ponte Vedra Beach is going for sale at auction tomorrow.
The troubled club has been the focus of several I-TEAM investigations as the owners were overcome with financial issues leading to temporary and sudden closures of the club and leaving staff unpaid.
A judge ruled in favor of two different mortgage lenders in July who are owed a combined 14 million dollars.
News4JAX has learned of at least four interested parties who plan to bid on the club on Thursday. The online auction starts at noon and anyone who makes a bid must make a 5% cash deposit beforehand.
Michael Mota, who has been serving as the Transition Manager at the Serenata Beach Club since March, is one of the people interested in buying the club. Mota has been the subject of a podcast and multiple investigations by the Boston Globe which characterized him last year as a “businessman who is being chased for money in multiple states by creditors, investors, and vendors.”
Related: Serenata Beach Club to go up for foreclosure auction in September
“Over the last five months, our objective is really just keeping the asset alive, meaning keeping the club open. It’s a 20-plus year building, maintenance hasn’t been a top priority,” Mota said. “My job was just to get the place back open as best as possible and get it ready for what we see tomorrow, which is the auction.”
Mota was brought in by the current owner of the club Molly Butler. The Rhode Island businessman said one of his business partners introduced him to Butler and he fell in love with the Ponte Vedra Beach property.
Mota said the Serenata Beach Club has not made money in years and he has a goal of making the club more sustainable and profitable. He was behind mandatory changes to membership spending in March requiring minimum monthly spending on food and drinks and members to start paying for beach chair rentals.
Part of his plans include potentially building a 70-room boutique hotel at the 2.6-acre vacant lot across the street from the beach club.
“Again, this is just to offset the costs the members have enjoyed for many years, a very, very low fee to join the club, and unfortunately, it was just never enough to actually sustain it,” Mota said. “Currently, it’s very difficult to keep it the way it is, only because it was never really set up for success and never brought in enough money to actually sustain itself. So any business knows that it has to have other revenue sources to make it succeed.”
A group of members, however, are trying to stop Mota’s bid, unhappy with how Mota’s been running things for the last six months. A decade-long beach club member and retired attorney, Jim Valenti, is leading the efforts by selling hundreds of equity memberships at $35,000 each.
Valenti tells News4Jax he expects the auction to go his way, in favor of a member-owned club.
Some members tell News4JAX they’re worried about Mota’s past business ventures in Rhode Island. The Boston Globe reports that Mota leases a Providence events venue, The Skyline, and a settlement to evict Mota was reached Monday.
News4JAX asked Mota how he could assure members of the beach club that something similar wouldn’t happen in Ponte Vedra.
“So there is, there is some Boston Globe stories out there. They’re being sued. It’s, it’s fake news. You know, unfortunately, we live in a world where anybody can say anything, which you’re seeing right now. There’s an event venue that we have here in Rhode Island, and now the city is going to settle with us. We were never evicted. We never didn’t pay rent,” Mota said in response.
A spokesperson for the Boston Globe provided this statement in response to Mota’s comments about a pending lawsuit against an investigator reporter: “We stand by our reporting. The articles in question about Mr. Mota were thoroughly researched and accurate and were based on a wealth of information. Facts, no matter how disagreeable, are not defamatory.”
An out-of-state investment group, who asked not to be named in this story, and a locally owned corporation are also planning to submit a bid for the Serenata Beach Club at auction.
Jacksonville-based North American Trading Group Inc. purchased the judgment from the lenders seeking foreclosure.
Real-estate attorney Barry Ansbacher said more than likely, North American Trading Group Inc. will be the successful bidder.
“If North American Trading wants the property, they don’t have to put up any new money unless they want to bid more than the full judgment,” Ansbacher said. “If you think about it, whoever is buying this doesn’t really know what they’re buying in terms of what the conditions are and what’s going on with the property. So, it’s a lot of money you would have to put up blindly, cash on the barrel, and there’s no going back.”
The I-TEAM did reach the owner of North American Trading Group Inc. who is based in Saint Johns for comment on this story. They declined our request.
Tomorrow’s auction will be held online by the St. John’s County Clerk of Courts. The highest and best cash offer wins and will have to produce those funds in 24 hours.