Black Cat: foreclosure

Kinney O'Rourke, who with his wife Jean owns and operates the Black Cat Cafe, described a notice of foreclosure on the railroad station as nothing more than "a glitch in our plans to redevelop this historic property."

As Laconia Railroad Station Association, LLC the O'Rourke's acquired the station from Kenneth Forsberg, formerly of Laconia and now of Lyons, Colorado, who took a mortgage on the property to secure a promissory note for the purchase price of $682,150.

The O'Rourke's planned to finance a share of the purchase by selling the units in the station to the retail tenants as condominiums. "We missed a deadline for paying the note," O'Rourke said, explaining that "it took us much longer to put together the sale of the units that we had originally anticipated."

"We expect to pay off the balance of the note, which is approximately half the purchase price, and get the release of the mortgage within a week or ten days," said O'Rourke. The foreclosure sale is scheduled for March 1 at 10:00 a.m.

The O'Rourke's intend to restore the building and move the Black Cat Cafe to central rotunda where it will operate as a full service restaurant.