Troubled S.A. lawyer loses namesake office building

The Phipps Building — home to the San Antonio law office of owner Martin Phipps and rooftop bar Paramount at the Phipps — has changed hands after its owner defaulted on the mortgage.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Bexar County records show that an LLC tied to Dallas-based businessman Daren Connel took out a mortgage from First National Bank & Trust Company for $8.25 million, the San Antonio Business Journal reported. That would be about $264 per square foot for the four-story office building at 102 Ninth Street, which comprises about 31,000 square feet. It fronts the RiverWalk, near the San Antonio Museum of Art, and was built in 2014, according to LoopNet.

Phipps, who is known for representing Bexar County in several high-profile opioid cases, has retained a right to repurchase the building at a later date, telling the San Antonio Business Journal that the move was “just family planning.”

The loss of the building is the latest installment in Phipps’ public downward spiral, which began on Christmas in 2020. That’s when the San Antonio attorney, 51, was accused of harassing his then-wife Brenda Vega, 24, a former employee who he had married about a week prior.

Phipps was arrested in early 2021, accused of repeatedly texting his wife with harassing messages while she was visiting family in Mexico. That case was dropped in April.

There were also reportedly multiple resignations from his law firm, Phipps Anderson Deacon, which was also hit with lawsuits. The first was from PNC Equipment Finance, alleging the attorney had defaulted on $1.7 million of a loan for a private jet, which was promptly repossessed. The second was from a marketing company that alleged Phipps owed over $340,000 in unpaid invoices.

That brings us to August 2022, when EMET LLC, an organization tied to Phipps, notified lender Frost Bank that it would default on the mortgage for Phipps’ namesake office building, according to Bexar County records. The appraisal district valued it at $6.8 million in 2022.

Phipps received a default notice on the $7.3 million loan from 2017, county records show.

He reached a forbearance agreement with Frost, a few months later, in October, when the principal balance due was more than $8 million.

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— Maddy Sperling