Are Kuhn's finances shaky? Stay tuned

[Lunican]

Are Kuhn's finances shaky? Stay tuned

Beth Kassab

Business Columnist

August 10, 2007

Developer Cameron Kuhn is in the middle of a flurry of lawsuits. He's laid off employees and sold his helicopter.

Is Kuhn, known as an ambitious risk-taker who has successfully remade portions of downtown, in financial trouble?

One of his attorneys and investment partners dismisses the suggestion.

"The sky isn't falling. The projects are doing very well. Mr. Kuhn is doing very well," said Griff Winthrop of the downtown firm Alvarez, Sambol, Winthrop & Madson.

Perhaps. But these recent events are raising some eyebrows around town.

Certainly, there is a lot at stake for Kuhn.

The Plaza, designed to be Kuhn's urban masterpiece and first foray into the big leagues after working for years on smaller projects, is an impressive trio of downtown skyscrapers.

Its prime location, now even more desirable because of its proximity to land set aside for the new performing arts center and Orlando Magic arena, will undoubtedly lure tenants and traffic.

The Plaza's 12-screen movie theater, on which construction is still not complete and more than eight months overdue, is now slated to open this year.

Kuhn also is moving forward with plans to redevelop Church Street Station, which he picked up for $34 million after Lou Pearlman's empire imploded.

And in Jacksonville, he is pushing ahead with plans to build a parking garage and another project called One12, which will be a residential building or hotel, depending on market conditions. At the same time, his point man in Jacksonville reportedly resigned earlier this month and a hotel condominium project is on hold.

Kuhn, like other developers, is dealing with setbacks brought on by a souring real estate market. It appears he's smartly downsizing his business and refocusing his efforts on what brought him his earliest successes: rehabbing old buildings rather than new development.

What doesn't make sense is Kuhn's odd legal and public relations strategy. Kuhn recently issued an angry news release blaming Jacksonville for construction delays on his projects there.

And this week, he filed a lawsuit and sent out a terse news release in an effort to stave off a "smear campaign" by Frank Vennes, a co-developer on several projects. He says Vennes tried to convert him to fundamentalist Christianity and tried to limit his political activity as a Democrat.

That seems like the sort of pre-emptive strike destined to provoke a nuclear-level counter strike -- and that's exactly what happened. Vennes filed three lawsuits against Kuhn alleging that he defaulted on a more than $2 million loan and failed to pay more than $11 million for interest in two companies that owned property.

Kuhn also filed a lawsuit against Brasfield & Gorrie just as executives at the construction contractor thought they were progressing toward a settlement over a $5.4 million lien they filed against The Plaza in May.

Kuhn's lawsuit says the contractor failed to complete the building in a timely manner, overbilled him and performed some defective work.

That prompted Brasfield to immediately file a suit against Kuhn to foreclose on the lien and seek additional damages for a laundry list of allegations including, "furnishing information which misled B&G."

Winthrop said Kuhn's suits were forced to protect his business reputation and keep him from going from "the guy who everybody is giving their money, to not even getting your phone calls returned."

So is Kuhn in trouble? As the lawsuits unfold in court, we'll find out soon enough.

Beth Kassab can be reached at 407-420-5448 or bkassab@orlandosentinel.com.