It appears time has finally caught up with “The Corner,” the posh condos on the corner of South Higgins Avenue and Brooks Street that, after years of construction, were listed for sale as the local high-end real estate market was tanking.

Last week, project developer and architect Eric Hefty filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as did his company, The Corner Development, LLC.

• The Corner

Hefty declined to comment, deferring to his attorney, Harold Dye of the local firm Dye Moe.

Dye says both The Corner and the adjacent University Apartments on Roosevelt Street, also owned by Hefty, are implicated in the filings. Hefty found himself in a “foreclosure situation” with primary creditor Mountain West Bank, Dye says, and was forced into an emergency bankruptcy filing to protect his assets from the bank’s “imminent action.”

“We’re going to try to sell things in an orderly manner to hopefully pay everybody off,” Dye says. “That’s the general goal.”

According to The Corner’s website, two small residential condos and the entire 4,100-square-foot ground floor, designated as commercial space, remain for sale. Prices aren’t disclosed.

A year and a half ago the Missoulian quoted Hefty as expressing concern over the $3 million project’s timing.

While Hefty’s project may be swinging for the fences, he admits that perhaps now isn’t “the best time to be a developer,” and believes that the Missoula condo market is “probably on hold.”

Bankruptcy documents, filed on Jan. 13 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Butte, estimate The Corner Development’s assets at less than $50,000, with liabilities exceeding $1 million. More thorough financial statements will be filed in the coming days, Dye says.