Hard times hit home for housing developer
Prime Development Inc., a major commercial and residential developer and builder in the Edwardsville-Glen Carbon-Troy area for a decade, has all but disappeared, leaving behind partly completed homes and subdivisions and a host of unpaid lenders and subcontractors.
Attempts to contact the company’s two top officials were unsuccessful, but an attorney for the company on Saturday blamed a stagnant housing market for the company’s problems.
The company’s telephones are disconnected. Its former office in Club Centre in Edwardsville is closed. The company has an office on South State Route 159 in Glen Carbon, but there is no sign outside, and the doors were locked Friday morning. A worker at a neighboring business said there is seldom anyone in the office.
More than 200 mechanic’s liens have been filed against Prime in Madison County. Subtracting those that have been released or forfeited, it appears that about 100 are pending.
Records in the Illinois secretary of state’s office list Patrick A. Parker of Godfrey as Prime Development’s president and Steven F. Gardner of Edwardsville as its secretary.
… “They went from selling 60 to 100 homes a year down to a couple a month and it has really hurt them,” he said. “Housing sales have totally fallen off the table. They’re trying to work out of it. They want to pay everyone.”