Despite winning the auction as the sole bidder offering a modest €3m for one of the Baltic region’s most beautiful and iconic buildings, Gusakov failed to transfer the first payment within one month’s time as required by law, thereby giving up a security deposit worth €503,771.
Kreics told national information agency LETA it will take two weeks for the state and the Ķemeri sanatorium creditors to assess the consequences and further options resulting from the failed auction.
The bid was for the acquisition all of the assets of Ominasis Latvia, including the sanatorium buildings and their historic contents, valued at a starting price of €2.9m.
Despite hope that Gusakov’s registered company Park Hotel Kemeri would have developed the site into a viable resort attraction such as the businessman’s Heliopark Group has built at eleven other hotels in Russia and Germany, the auction’s failure now sets the Latvian government and the municipal authorities in Jurmala back to square one on the troubled project.
As reported the Jurmala city council adopted a development plan for the area and its surrounding infrastructure this spring, calling for ambitious long-term investments into the roads and streets accessing the envisioned historic park, spa facility and nature center.
