Miami Gardens church facing foreclosure

Miami Gardens’ Fountain of New Life Ministries has been hit with a foreclosure lawsuit by Branch Banking & Trust at its 31,557-square-foot building at 4601 N.W. 167th Street. Pastor Wayne Lomax told the South Florida Business Journal that the church, which has around 1,000, mostly black congregants, had been making its monthly payments on the $1.4 million mortgage when the bank demanded the loan balance in full and the church wasn’t able to find new financing. The church also has a building in Pembroke Pines, whose congregation merged with the one in Miami Gardens last year, signing a forbearance agreement to bring the loan current and repay it in full within one year. Together, the congregations managed to reduce the balance of the loan to $1.2 million but couldn’t pay it off. BB&T “didn’t want to retain [the loan] on their books, even though we have been faithfully making payments,” Lomax said. “I never thought it would come to this.” [SFBJ]