S.C. Supreme Court rules against former partners at Carolina Park

The S.C. Supreme Court today rejected an appeal by two companies fighting to reclaim ownership of the Carolina Park tract in Mount Pleasant after losing the property at a 2010 foreclosure sale.

The seven-page ruling went against Carolina Park Associates LLC and Republic-Charleston LLC over the 1,700 acres of mostly undeveloped land along U.S. Highway 17 in the north end of town.

The state’s high court found that the companies had not been wrongfully deprived of their rights to the property. It also upheld a ruling by a lower court that denied their efforts to file a new lawsuit to take back the land.

An attorney for Carolina Park Associates and Republic-Charleston was not immediately available for comment.

The companies lost their ownership stake in the property in June 2010, when the land was sold at a foreclosure auction for $50 million. The buyer was a group called CDM of Charleston LLC. which includes three of their former business partners.

Those three former partners had owned the land outright from 1987 to 2002, when it formed Carolina Park Associates LLC in a joint venture with Republic-Charleston.

After a bitter partnership split amid the real estate downturn, CDM worked out a deal in 2010 to repurchase the property with the help of Grove Land Investors LLC, a Daniel Island-based firm.

See Thursday’s editions of The Post and Courier for more details.