AMR Construction LLC escalated its efforts to collect money from "developer" Scott Reed of Portland, Oregon.The Little Rock contractor filed a foreclosure suit to keep its lien claim of $196,440 in force on Reed's K Lofts project.The claim for unpaid work on the downtown Little Rock project at 315 Main St. is divided between two contracts.More than $143,700 is owed on the original $2.1 million contract to redevelop the upper floors of the once-dilapidated five-story building into 32 apartments.More than $52,600 is owed on an $825,300 contract to repair a partial collapse of the east wall in 2013.According to AMR's complaint, the last payment on either contract was March 25, 2013, and Reed was behind in payments then and had been for months.AMR also is asking that a judge order the dispute into arbitration as required under the contract terms after a formal mediation on Feb. 19 went nowhere.Those talks involved another interested party, IberiaBank, which provided a $1.3 million construction loan to Reed's K Lofts LLC.The renovated 115-year-old building stands vacant, with the apartments mostly complete but in a state of limbo.Had Reed's plans proceeded as originally touted, he could have had the first apartments to open in the Main Street corridor.Nearly six years after trumpeting his K Loft plans, Reed has yet to deliver any completed projects among several failed attempts in Little Rock.His biggest stumble is the Main Street Lofts project, with 30 unfinished apartments and incomplete work on ground-floor space for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and more.That dispute is now winding its way along the foreclosure trail after AMR received an $896,756 arbitration award for unpaid work on the three-building, 125,000-SF redevelopment at 510-524 Main St.
