A big tract of land with a troubled history is being put up for sale.

Cornerstone CRES of Knoxville is part of a team that is marketing 545 acres located near the Wilderness at the Smokies resort and water park and the Sevierville Events Center.

The property is being marketed without a sale price and was previously owned by an entity called Universe LLC, but was acquired by Capital Bank — which had also acquired GreenBank — at a foreclosure sale last year.

Dan Adkins of Cornerstone said the property is split into nine different tracts with a variety of zoning types. He said it includes 5 acres directly across from Wilderness and another 34 acres across Old Knoxville Highway from the resort.

“Ideally we would sell it as one large piece, 545 acres,” he said. “But realistically we’re probably going to sell it to three or four different buyers, because it varies so much by type of development.”

An entity called the Bridgemont Group launched the 1,000-acre project along Highway 66 several years ago. The Wilderness resort was developed by a Wisconsin firm and opened in 2008, but much of the property was retained by Universe, which was led by developer James Calkin.

Universe eventually ran into significant financial difficulties and was unable to pay back a $9.1 million debt it owed to the city of Sevierville for infrastructure work around the site. In 2010, the Sevierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen rejected a request by Universe for a $40 million bond deal in which surrounding property owners would have been asked to pay a special assessed property tax. Capital Bank foreclosed on the property last year, according to the Mountain Press.

Asked about the property on Monday, Sevierville city administrator Russell Treadway said “certainly we’d like to … see additional quality development go in there to complement the events center and the golf course and everything else that’s gone in over there.”