Investor wants $8M over scuttled hotel deal

A North Dallas hotel is at the center of a multi-million dollar legal dispute.

Dallas-based firm Couture Hotel Corporation is seeking a nearly $8 million payout over the scuttled sale of the 350-key Wyndham Garden Inn at 2645 Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway.

Couture, which operated the property as a homeless shelter in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, filed a claim against the bankruptcy estate of Saibaba Hotels LLC, court records show. The Frisco-based entity operated an America’s Best Value Inn location in Gun Barrel City, about an hour away from Dallas. 

Couture’s claim is related to a Ten-X online auction for the property in which Saibaba lodged a winning bid of $13.6 million. Couture accused Saibaba of trying to negotiate rather than pay the bid price, according to court documents. The deal never pushed through, and the property later sold in foreclosure for $8 million. 

Saibaba filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April. The figure for Couture’s claim, at nearly $7.8 million, represents the difference in price between the auction and the foreclosure, as well as six percent interest for 47 months. Couture previously won a $7.1 million judgment against Jay Patel, one of Saibaba’s managers.

Ramakrishna Krothapalli, the managing member of Saibaba, described Couture’s claim in a court filing as “unwarranted.”

Saibaba “could not secure financing necessary to enter into the (purchase and sale agreement) and was left unable to acquire the Property … Neither I nor anybody else representing the Debtor ever signed this PSA,” he said. 

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Krothapalli and his representatives from Dallas law firm Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal did not respond to requests for comment. 

Couture, also known as Hugh Black-St. Mary Enterprises, was founded by Hugh Black, a forest ranger who started a resort next to Montana’s Glacier National Park in the 1920s. The current owners, headed by John Blomfield, bought the firm in 2008. According to court records, Blomfield, who owned a 70 percent share of the firm, lived in the Wyndham Garden Inn and was involved in its day-to-day operations.