Timberstone's West Toledo site sold at auction

9/23/2010
BY JON CHAVEZ
BLADE BUSINESS WRITER

The last Toledo-area property belonging to the former Timberstone Development Group Inc., a top area developer that went bankrupt a year ago, has been sold to an owner of several area shopping centers.

The DeVeaux Village Shopping Center at 2600 West Sylvania Ave. at Douglas Road was purchased Sept. 1 by Ramy Eidi, head of Eidi Properties of Toledo. The price for the 80,000-square-foot shopping center, built in 1956, was $4.05 million.

Mr. Eidi acquired the shopping center through a sealed bid auction in June when six former Timberstone properties in the Toledo area were put up for sale by a court-appointed receiver.

The other five properties, which included three other shopping centers, the former Timberstone headquarters in Holland, and a 22-acre site in Sylvania Township that once served as home of a gun club, were sold in August or earlier.

"DeVeaux was the last one in the Toledo area," said Wayne Wilson of Wilson Auction Co. in Bryan, who conducted the sealed-bid sale of the properties three months ago.

Mr. Eidi, who owns 23 shopping center properties in Ohio and southeast Michigan, said he was pleased to be add the DeVeaux center to his portfolio.

"We love the neighborhood. It has good, strong demographics and a lot of rooftops nearby. It has a good tenant mix and a good future for many years," he said.

The center is completely occupied. Tenants include a church, a meat and deli shop, a hair salon, a sports bar, a pizza shop, a Buckeye CableSystem outlet, a Goodwill store, and a resale shop.

The center property does not include a nearby restaurant, El Camino Real, a fitness club, or a former Food Town store. Mr. Eidi said he was told a charter school would likely occupy the empty supermarket. "Really, it was just a very good deal. … Timberstone had done all the renovations to DeVeaux [in 2006] and replaced almost the entire roof except one section. There's a slight remodeling to the parking lot we will have to do in the springtime, but really, this is rare for us," Mr. Eidi said. "We usually find a property with problems that have to be addressed, but all the hard work has been done with that center."

Contact Jon Chavez at:

jchavez@theblade.com

or 419-724-6128.