ELLENVILLE – Seeming to justify the fears and speculation regarding news of a sale of the Nevele Grande Resort, potential buyer Rafi Weiss of Brooklyn-based Tricon Development said in an interview Sunday, February 7, that his company would cease its movement forward to purchase the property, which has been closed since last summer. According to Weiss, the main obstacle to closing the deal revolved around the ongoing litigation between current-owner Joel Hoffman and his former business partner, Mitchell Wolff.

"We are concerned that by the time all of the fighting ends, and we, who are innocent people who really wanted to sincerely make it work — we're going to end up with a shell of what it [the Nevele] was," said Weiss.

Wolff is seeking a receiver to be appointed to the property in order to satisfy an unpaid $2 million judgment against Hoffman from a lawsuit in New Jersey. However, Wolff, apparently, is looking to have himself appointed as the receiver. Some legal experts have considered such a move a potential conflict of interest.

Weiss, likewise, had never encountered such a situation.

"I didn't think that you could own a piece of property in conjunction with [someone] and also file a lien," he said. "It's the first time I've ever seen it, by the way, and I've been in business for 20 years."

Auction America Realty's Marvin Neuman, who was contracted with selling the resort last summer, raised questions regarding the current question of control over the resort, pointing to the contract between Hoffman and Weiss to work toward a transfer of ownership.

"If that contract [between Weiss and Hoffman], any part of it, was not appropriate, was illegal, contained anything improper, at that point in time it was the obligation of the judge to clear it up," said Neuman.

"They keep talking about appointing Mitchell Wolff a receiver: a receiver of what? There is no income, there is nothing, the hotel is closed," he added. "I just don't understand how a lien-holder could create such a bottleneck of such a major entity in [the] region. I'm baffled."

A copy of a letter from Wolff's attorney, Craig Hilliard of the Lawrenceville, New Jersey-based law firm Stark & Stark, was obtained by Tricon; the letter suggests that "they don't necessarily want to have us complete our diligence," said Weiss. A call to Hilliard by the Journal on Tuesday was not returned as of press time.

"Given the fact that we have other options, and even though we very much wanted to do the Nevele, we don't want to be splattered with the mud that people are slinging at each other," he said. He also added that his calls to Wolff had not been answered.

The situation regarding current control over the resort is murky as well. Lance Matteson, president of the Ulster County Development Corporation, is looking to the courts to clear things up so getting the property in the hands of new ownership can come back into focus.

"The litigation between the partners is, indeed, an issue that has to be resolved for any buyer to be able to move forward," said Matteson. "We are expecting some clarity on that soon, but the decision has not come down from the judge in that case, so I think once that happens, there will be a little more clarity about who will be operating the Nevele, and who a buyer will be dealing with.

"Our priority is to get jobs back at the Nevele," he added.

Besides the litigation, there were still many obstacles with which Tricon was contending up to this point: the ever-mounting liens against the Nevele property was one, in response to which, Weiss said, "that's all surmountable, that can all be dealt with, and dealt with to everyone's satisfaction," alluding to earlier reported statements he made that said debts owed by the Nevele's current ownership would be paid, and that liens would be satisfied.

Yet another hurdle the would-be-purchasers were working to clear surrounded the facility's sewer plant, which was originally built and installed decades ago. Because the system was shut down during the Nevele's closure last year, restarting it would mean passing muster with more recently passed environmental laws, which the property had been able to circumvent because it had been grandfathered in under older regulations, said Weiss.

However, despite the problems regarding the sewer plant, Weiss said that if the legal situation between Wolff and Hoffman were cleared up, Tricon would be interested in moving ahead with their intention to purchase. Until that time, though, Weiss said that the company will be looking to other opportunities in the area — specifically one in Ulster County that he couldn't name due to a confidentiality clause — that would cause fewer headaches than the Nevele.

"It's a shame, I can tell you that," said Weiss of the legal battle over the resort. "Not even because we may not be involved [in the purchase]. It's a shame that people just cannot resolve their differences, to the point where they're going to destroy each other. That's the pity of it."