EB5AN bids $65 million to stabilize bankrupt Wohali project

A $65 million credit bid from EB5AN has become the clearest path yet toward keeping Wohali alive, but the Coalville-area luxury resort still sits inside a bankruptcy case with far bigger claims, disputed debts and unfinished obligations. The company, which works with the EB-5 visa investment program, was the lone bidder at a formal auction last month and says it wants to protect the foreign investors who put money into the project while trying to stabilize a development that has been in court for more than a year.

Wohali Land Estates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2025 with more than $13 million in debt, but broader creditor claims have been estimated between $100 million and $500 million. In another public estimate, the lender’s claim has been described as about $86 million, a figure that suggests the $65 million bid may not be enough to settle every party at the table. EB5AN said it had become Wohali’s primary funding source in 2022, before the golf course was complete or major construction had begun, and foreign investors working with the company contributed almost $80 million to the project.

The EB-5 program can function as a financing tool for developments that struggle to find traditional lenders. Investors can seek a green card after putting in $800,000 and proving a project created at least 10 jobs. EB5AN says it has handled more than 30 projects, and its stakes in Wohali are substantial enough that the company has positioned itself not just as a bidder, but as a rescuer trying to preserve value for its investors and the property itself.

For Coalville and the broader Summit County market, the question is what survives if EB5AN succeeds. Project materials described Wohali as a more than 1,600-acre residential community centered on an 18-hole championship golf course, with 125 estate lots, 303 townhouse-style village residences and more than 3,400 acres of private backcountry recreation land. EB5AN’s project page listed total construction costs at $400 million, underscoring the scale of what is at risk if the bankruptcy process collapses the project rather than revives it.

The dispute also reaches beyond the developer and lender. Boyden Farms, the original landowner, and the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands have been drawn into the fight, while state auditors and other local governments have raised questions about how Wohali’s public infrastructure district debt should be treated now that the project is in bankruptcy. Those concerns go to the heart of local accountability: who gets paid, who absorbs losses and whether public debt tied to a failed private project ends up on local balance sheets.

Coalville approved a development agreement for Wohali on May 25, 2021, and the City Council later approved a Phase 2 overall village center plan on November 8, 2021. That plan covered 110 acres, 181 resort units, 32 lodge and golf house units and an 11-hole short course, and a March 11, 2024 hearing focused on transient room tax issues for resort units. The project now joins a familiar Summit County pattern, where high-end developments sometimes stumble before they recover, as Promontory did after its 2008 bankruptcy and 2009 sale out of bankruptcy. Whether Wohali follows that path will depend on how much value remains after the claims are sorted out, and whether $65 million is enough to pull a half-built resort back from the edge.