Former Texas Ranger Rafael Palmeiro Asking for More Time To Unload Pebble Beach Real Estate to Cover $40 Million in Debts

(Above) Typical home in Pebble Beach (NOT Palmeiro’s)

The Texas Rangers are going to be world champs for the second year in a row, I feel it in my bones! But Rafael Palmeiro, the Rangers former slugger turned real estate developer, might be wishing he could get back into the game and out of real estate. Palmeiro is now asking creditors in his bankruptcy case (says the Fort Worth Star Telegram) to give him five years to sell the 200 acres of undeveloped land near Grapevine Mills mall he had planned for a mixed-used development called Gardens of Grapevine.

Palmeiro’s creditors are owed more than $40 million, and $10 million of that is owed to Palmeiro himself, the “skin” he apparently put into the deal which has Branch Banking & Trust listed as the largest creditor at $19 million. According to the Fort Worth Star Telegram,  Palmeiro negotiated loan extensions with three lenders last year, but in March, BB&T played hardball:

“BB&T “abruptly demanded $8 million cash to extend again,” and posted the property for foreclosure, pushing the development into bankruptcy, court filings said.”

Wow, that’s mean. Palmeiro and his wife, Mary Lynne, live in Colleyville. Stay tuned for the deets on that home. But they also own a home in in Pebble Beach, Calif., worth at least $10.5 million, they claim, which they say they will sell. (Hey, I know a great Realtor out there.) The Star-Telegram says they plan to make $2.5 million from the sale of the Pebble Beach property to make interest payments on notes until the Grapevine  property, which fronts Texas 121 and Farm Road 2499, sells, hence the request for five years until the market turns around.

I did some digging in Pebble Beach, where I spent a week this summer at Concours D’Elegance. My sources tell me the Palmeiro Pebble pad is about 6,700 square feet, a stunning 1920’s Mediterranean complete with a wine cellar, three car garage, pool and guest house. It was originally priced at more than $12 million, but they snagged it in 2008 for $8,500,000. It may well be worth $10.5 million, but how do they expect to sell it in this market — and California real estate is not exactly flying off the shelves — for more than they paid in 2008? That’s a real head-scratcher.

Of course, my sources there do tell me that while the summer in Pebble was slower than my golf game, things have picked up.

Palmeiro is working to obtain liquidity: Gardens of Grapevine is under contract to sell 17 acres to Lincoln Property Co. for $6.9 million in February. And Lincoln has an option for another 17 acres. With luck and any sort of market turn-around, he could sell 192 acres to net as much as $46.3 million.