A lis pendens, which is Latin for "suit pending," is a formal notice that a lawsuit is about to be filed.
Barefoot Retail Partners owns Barefoot Landing's entertainment district, where the Alabama Theatre, House of Blues and Alligator Adventure are located, according to Horry County property records.
The pending foreclosure would not include Barefoot Landing's retail and restaurant areas, which are owned by a separate corporation.
While a foreclosure would include the Barefoot Retail Partners property, it would not affect the operations of the entertainment venues there, which lease land from Filipowski's corporation.
"It would have no impact on us," said Bob Wood, general manager of the Alabama Theater. "The bank would have to honor our lease."
Filipowski did not return telephone messages last week.
Michael Hickerson, a Charleston lawyer who represents TD Bank, also did not respond to requests for comment.
Barefoot Retail Partners bought the property for $9.5 million in 2005, according to county property records. The corporation obtained a $10 million loan from what was then Carolina First to buy the property.
Barefoot Retail Partners obtained another $6 million loan tied to the property from Carolina First in 2007, according to court documents.
The $10 million loan was due in, August and the $6 million loan was due in September, property records show.
TD Bank has not said how much of the loan amounts are in default. That information likely would be included in the foreclosure lawsuit.
Businesses and lawsuits
Filipowski - a 60-year-old son of Polish immigrants who goes by the nickname "Flip" - made his fortune from a Chicago-based software company he formed called Platinum Technology Inc. in 1987.
That company, which produced database management software, grew through a series of acquisitions until it was bought out by Computer Associates in 1999 - the cusp of the dot-com stock run-up.
Computer Associates paid $3.5 billion for Platinum Technology - the most expensive software-industry transaction at the time - and Filipowski pocketed about $300 million from the sale.
Filipowski's success was a boon to Chicago's fledgling technology sector, which had hoped to compete with California's Silicon Valley. His next venture - an Internet incubator called Divine Inc. - proved to be a disaster.
Divine spent millions on overvalued tech start-ups, and its stock offering faltered amid the dot-com bubble's burst, eventually driving the company into bankruptcy.
"It was a life event - one with a lot of learning experiences, but not one with a lot of monetary success," Filipowski told a newspaper in the wake of Divine's eventual demise in 2003.
Filipowski next moved to Winston-Salem, N.C., where he formed his latest business, called Silkroad Technology Inc., which sells business management software.
Filipowski also formed Silkroad Equity, a private investment firm that counts Barefoot Landing's entertainment district as one of its subsidiaries.
Another Silkroad subsidiary - SilkHOB LLC - has been embroiled in a two-year legal battle with the House of Blues restaurant at Barefoot Landing.
House of Blues claims the subsidiary promised to provide the restaurant's promotional and marketing services for a three-year period starting on July 4, 2005.
House of Blues also claims SilkHOB promised to cover the venue's operating losses during that time, totaling $3 million.
SilkHOB claims in court documents that no final agreement ever was signed and that the subsidiary does not have $3 million to cover House of Blues' losses.
A hearing to determine whether House of Blues should be granted a summary judgment in the lawsuit is scheduled for Monday at the federal courthouse in Florence.
HOB Entertainment Inc., the California-based parent company of the local House of Blues, has joined the local restaurant in the lawsuit against SilkHOB.
Filipowski was a former member of HOB Entertainment's board of directors and was one of the people who ousted House of Blues founder Isaac Tigrett as chief executive in 1997 - the same year Tigrett visited North Myrtle Beach to herald the local venue's grand opening.
More lessons to learn
In addition to the Barefoot Landing property, Filipowski soon could lose a trio of oceanfront homes he and his Flips LLC business own along the Golden Mile section of Myrtle Beach, according to court documents.
JP Morgan Chase filed a lawsuit against Filipowski last year, claiming he had defaulted on an $8 million loan for which the homes had been used as collateral.
Filipowski filed a countersuit, claiming the bank tricked him into signing an interest rate swap agreement that he later learned would cost him $750,000 to terminate.
Both sides agreed to dismiss their claims earlier this year, but JP Morgan Chase still has a lis pendens on each home.
Filipowski is trying to sell the homes for a combined $8.8 million, according to real estate listings. That includes $4.6 million for his privately gated home at 3404 N. Ocean Blvd., complete with Japanese garden, ornate furnishings and infinity-edge pool.
In a separate court action, TD Bank is threatening to foreclose on five parcels Filipowski's Coastal Resort Holdings LLC owns in Barefoot Resort because of an unpaid $5 million mortgage. TD Bank filed a lis pendens against that property earlier this month.
Filipowski's legal problems have been complicated by his divorce from ex-wife Veronica, whom he met in the late 1980s during a golfing trip to Myrtle Beach.
Veronica Filipowski received an undisclosed sum from the divorce last year. The judge in that case closed the divorce hearings to the public and only allowed those who signed confidentiality agreements to attend.
Veronica Filipowski now is suing her ex-husband's mistress under North Carolina's "heart balm" torts law, which lets jilted spouses seek financial compensation for adultery. Veronica Filipowski is seeking at least $40,000 in damages from the mistress in a trial scheduled for next month.
The divorce also scuttled Andrew Filipowski's plans to help build a minor league baseball stadium for Winston-Salem's Class A team, the Dash. That team plays in the same league as the Myrtle Beach Pelicans.
Filipowski had co-owned the baseball team - then known as the Warthogs - with Billy Prim, founder of the Blue Rhino propane cylinder exchange company and the brother of Veronica Filipowski.
The Filipowskis split in the midst of the stadium construction, leaving Prim and city officials to come up with his partner's share of the costs. The $48.7 million stadium ultimately was completed in time for the Dash's opening game this year.
Andrew Filipowski and Prim also had been partners in Blue Rhino, which got its name after Prim went on an African safari and remarked that a rhinoceros would be the perfect mascot for his company because it is "tough, sturdy and looks like a tank." Blue was added to the name because it is the color of a propane gas flame.
Blue Rhino also ran into trouble when its auditor questioned some of the company's financial transactions in 1999 and its stock plunged from about $25 per share to $2 per share. Blue Rhino continued to dominate market share, however, and Prim and Filipowski sold the company in 2004 for $343 million.
Most recently, Andrew Filipowski's Silkroad Technology announced this month that it has closed on $40 million in equity financing from a group of investors.
A news release announcing the investment said the money will be used for sales and marketing efforts, acquisitions and product development. It is not clear whether any of the money can be used to pay off debts related to the threatened foreclosures along the Grand Strand.
Tech-sector analysts have said it would be foolish to discount Andrew Filipowski's ability to bounce back from financial setbacks, citing the numerous times he has done it in the past.
"For better or worse, Andrew Filipowski ... is the closest thing the digital content industry has to a rock star," Michelle Manafy, editor of E-Content newsletter, wrote in a 2003 profile of the entrepreneur.
Even amid the breakup of his marriage and the public feud with former business partner Prim, Andrew Filipowski maintained an optimistic philosophy during a 2007 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, telling the newspaper he has no regrets about his personal or business failures.
"I only think about it from a lesson learned," he said. "If you dwell on the past, you end up going crazy."
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