Hotel Proposal Calls for American-Indian Help : North Hollywood: Under the redevelopment plan, an Oklahoma tribe would borrow funds from Florida to build a 12-story structure.

Los Angeles redevelopment officials, looking for some way to bring a new hotel to a run-down area of North Hollywood, have been presented with a convoluted plan under which an Oklahoma Indian tribe would borrow money from the state of Florida to build a Ramada Inn on Lankershim Boulevard.

The first American-Indian tribe approached, however, may have lost interest.

Developers must resort to such unusual financing methods because conventional credit markets are leery now of real estate projects, said Don Spivack, chief of operations for the Community Redevelopment Agency.

“I’ve seen them much more exotic than this,” he said. “But for us, it’s exotic.”

The still-developing plan was submitted May 7 to the commissioners of the Redevelopment Agency, which has a mandate to improve North Hollywood, by Ramada Inn Inc. and a partner, Auerbach Financial Inc.

The commissioners have taken no action on it.

But Spivack applauded Auerbach for its aggressive quest for a $38-million loan to finance a 12-story, 225-room hotel on Lankershim Boulevard, next to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences building, the Redevelopment Agency’s trophy development in North Hollywood.

“It’s an interesting idea and worth pursuing,” Spivack said of Auerbach’s negotiations to obtain the loan from the Florida Local Government Finance Authority.

Borrowing from the authority would be attractive because its ability to float tax-exempt bonds keeps its interest rates below the market--but even more important is that it’s willing to make loans at all, said Mark Ross, president of Auerbach, in an interview Friday.

“It’s almost impossible to borrow money now” for commercial real estate projects, Ross said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a good deal or a bad deal.”

The authority, formed by eight Florida cities and counties, sold $240 million in bonds in 1987 and is still trying to re-lend most of the money, said its director, Phillip Bennett. Its biggest loan to date was $51.5 million to Pomona.

But under Florida law, the authority can make loans only to another public entity, he said.

Which was where the Citizen Band Potowatomi Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, a qualified public entity, came in.

Under the financing deal submitted to the Redevelopment Agency by Auerbach, the agency would provide the land to the tribe at a discount and the tribe would hire Auerbach to build the hotel with $38 million the Indians would borrow from the Florida agency. Ramada would then lease the hotel from the tribe, and the Indians would use the income from the hotel chain to repay the loan.

In a letter dated Feb. 10, Potowatomi Chairman John (Rocky) Barrett said the deal was interesting, in part because the tribe has “over 3,200 members living in the greater Los Angeles area.”

The Potowatomi tribe’s headquarters is now in Shawnee, Okla., where it was moved from its ancestral home grounds in southern Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.

In an interview Friday, however, the tribe’s secretary-treasurer, Bob Davis, said he considered the loan negotiations with Auerbach finished.

“We’re not going to do it, as far as I’m concerned,” said Davis, one of the five members of the panel that runs the tribe’s financial affairs. Tribal leaders had “a lot of unanswered questions” about whether the hotel would generate enough income to enable the tribe to repay the $38 million, he said.

But Ross said he was still negotiating with the Potowatomis and its representatives, as well as those of other tribes. “The Indian concept in general” is still viable, Ross said. “Maybe not the Potowatomis.” He declined to name the other tribes.

Another possible angle is finding offshore private lenders, Ross said.

The unusual financing schemes being considered are no reflection on the merits of the project, Ross said. “Whether it’s financed by Florida or Bank of America, it’s going to bring in 400 new jobs and upgrade an area that’s in transition,” Ross said.