Closed for more than a year, Zora Bar & Rooftop on a prominent corner in Des Moines’ Ingersoll Avenue district will be sold at auction next month to satisfy a court judgment against its owner for more than $3.2 million.
Edwin Allen III has owed that amount, plus 18% annual interest, on the shuttered bar since a foreclosure judgment in July in favor of Community 1st Credit Union, court records show. On Sept. 4, the court formally ordered the Polk County sheriff to prepare the property for a sale that county records show is scheduled to take place Oct. 22.
Allen, 47, could not be reached for comment. Court records do not indicate he contested the foreclosure, resulting in the court granting a default judgment for the credit union.
He closed his troubled nightclub, opened in 2021, about 13 months ago. The city of Des Moines alleged in a lawsuit that the multi-level bar and restaurant on the corner of Ingersoll and Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway was a public nuisance after several shootings, one of them fatal, and assaults or riots on the property.
Allen received heavy social media criticism following those incidents, including the Nov. 26, 2022, shooting death in its parking lot of 29-year-old Alonzo Lee Kearney. No arrest has been reported in the case.
After city officials restricted his hours and alcohol sales, Allen filed a countersuit against the city for $10 million, saying it was trying to bankrupt him. A hearing to schedule the public nuisance trial has been set for Sept. 27.
Allen was cited in March 2023 for supplying alcohol to a person under 21 at Zora, but prosecutors later dismissed the case in what they said was “the interest of justice.” The same month, he put the bar, which he had custom-built for $5 million, on the market for $4 million. That was far more than the $1.5 million assessment at the time.
He and fellow Des Moines metro restaurateur Steve McFadden entered guilty pleas in April 2023 to other charges in a case that stemmed from the use of a hidden GPS device to track the movements of a woman McFadden had been involved with romantically.
McFadden, convicted of harassment and unauthorized placement and use of a GPS device, subsequently lost liquor licenses in Des Moines and West Des Moines for his Grumpy Goat and Tipsy Crow taverns.
Other Edwin Allen-owned properties also in foreclosure
First National Bank of Ames also foreclosed on Allen-owned properties at 3604 and 3612 Ingersoll Ave. and an apartment building where he’s lived at 1721 Pleasant St., all in Des Moines, as well as a home and duplex he purchased in Waukee, Iowa court records show.
Overdue debts on those mortgage loans totaled more than $1.8 million, plus interest. He also was in default on a cross-collateralization loan in which he still owed more than $1 million on all five properties, Polk and Dallas county court records showed.
Allen twice increased his loan with Community 1st Credit Union of Ottumwa on the Zora property to a total of $2.9 million, county records show. The property is assessed at $1.76 million, county assessor records show.
Staff writer William Morris contributed to this article.
Lee Rood’s Reader’s Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at lrood@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8549, on Twitter at @leerood or on Facebook at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Ingersoll Avenue bar Zora to be auctioned next month after foreclosure
