Marina’s Top Developer Files for Bankruptcy

Marina Del Rey’s biggest developer and his Saudi Arabian partners, locked in a bitter battle for control of about one-fifth of the property in the marina and faced with imminent foreclosure by the first in a line of lenders, filed for federal bankruptcy protection Wednesday.

The action by Abraham M. Lurie and his Saudi partners in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles blocks Great Western Bank from foreclosing on the Marina del Rey Hotel this morning.

Together, Lurie and an investment group headed by billionaire Saudi businessman Abdul Aziz al Ibrahim, a brother-in-law of King Fahd, control leases on three hotels, two apartment complexes, offices, shops, restaurants and more than 1,100 boat slips as well as the last undeveloped piece of waterfront property in the marina.