The future of the unfinished Ambience development in Fairy Meadow appears grim after the NSW Office of State Revenue applied to wind up the Belmorgan company behind the project.
The government body has applied to wind up three Belmorgan companies over unpaid taxes but last week declined to reveal the amounts owed or any other details of the applications.
The companies include SPV 7 Pty Ltd, which is behind the stalled Ambience retail and residential development at Fairy Meadow.
Repo men empty Belmorgan site Tense stand-off at Belmorgan siteWork on the controversial development, which was to include a Coles supermarket, other shops and residential apartments, stopped last year.
When the company was placed in administration in January, it owed the OSR more than $115,000.
There are also two applications by the OSR and Becton Investment Management Ltd to wind up the company involved in the Kemblawarra Business Park development, Kohura Pty Ltd.
Belmorgan sold its commercial office space at Kemblawarra business park to Melbourne property investment firm Becton for $22.85 million in February 2007. In December last year, Belmorgan was locked out of its headquarters by Becton, allegedly owing $165,000 in rent.
Kohura was also placed into administration in January, owing almost $7 million to St George Bank for its remaining land holdings at Kemblawarra and another $568,000 owed to other creditors.
But a statement of its finances, lodged with ASIC, did not list either the OSR or Becton as creditors.
Becton could not be contacted for comment last week.
The third company likely to be wound up is SPV 2 Pty Ltd, which went into administration in February, owing around $12 million.
Its debts included a $5.3 million loan to the Bank of Queensland for the former RAAF base at Dubbo, $1.4 million in unpaid payroll and land tax owed to the OSR and more than $5 million owed to other Belmorgan companies, according to ASIC documents.
The applications to wind up the companies were all lodged with ASIC on June 11 and will be heard in the NSW Supreme Court.
If the court grants the applications, the three companies will be placed into liquidation and wound up, with their assets being sold off to repay the debts.
That would end any hope of Belmorgan finishing the Ambience development, despite Wollongong City Council being told in April that administrator David Winterbottom, of KordaMentha, hoped to resume work on the development and finish construction by Christmas.
Mr Winterbottom was away and unavailable for comment.
The Belmorgan company involved in the proposed Gravity shopping centre in the CBD - Wollongong City Plaza Pty Ltd - has already been placed in liquidation after the OSR successfully sought an order to wind up the company in May over $1.6 million in unpaid taxes.
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