Western Thrift Foreclosing on Plaza Alicante Complex

GARDEN GROVE —  Foreclosure proceedings began Thursday against the sprawling Plaza Alicante office tower and 400-room hotel here amid allegations that its developers, including credit dentist Dr. Robert Beauchamp, have defaulted on $65 million in loans.

An attorney for Western Federal Savings of Marina del Rey said the thrift filed a complaint Thursday in Superior Court to foreclose on the complex at Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue.

The loans--with interest now totaling about $65 million--had been made by the defunct Bell Savings & Loan Assn. of San Mateo but are now under the control of Western as part of a federally assisted takeover of Bell, said Western’s attorney, Charles C. Ivie.

The complaint said the money to build the complex was borrowed by Gateway Properties, whose partners include Beauchamp and his family.

Beauchamp began an active real estate investment career after making his name in TV ads of the 1950s and 1960s as a dentist offering credit to low-income patients.

The Alicante was among Beauchamp’s most ambitious real estate projects. The $88-million development includes a 17-story hotel tower and 10-story office tower with 300,000 square feet of space.

The hotel, one of the county’s largest, is now operated as the Hyatt Regency Alicante.

Two attorneys who represent Gateway said Thursday that they could not comment on the complaint because they had not seen it. The complaint, he said, alleges that the partnership has been in arrears on its monthly payments for a period that began in January 1990.

Interest on the loans, accumulating at $15,600 a day, now totals $2.7 million, Ivie said.