DEARBORN – The former Dearborn Hyatt, once the second-largest hotel in Michigan, is set to go to auction this fall.

Once a symbol of luxury and grandeur, the iconic Dearborn Hyatt Regency is now facing an uncertain future. Originally slated for a transformation into high-end apartments, the 18-story former hotel at 600 Town Center Drive is now facing a sad, unfortunate future.

A notice about the Oct. 7-9 auction is now live on the Ten-X commercial auction website for the 18-story, 773-room hotel building that has sat empty since December 2018.

The auction appears to specifically be for the property’s note and the deed from a June 20 sheriff’s sale. The starting bid is $2.5 million.

The sheriff’s sale happened after the hotel’s owner — a limited liability company linked to New York-based Rhodium Capital Advisors — defaulted on the property’s 2021 mortgage. The winning $9.85 million bid was from an LLC linked to Birmingham-based Bloomfield Capital, which was the lender for the $16.5 million mortgage.

Under Michigan law, the hotel’s owner has six months, or until Dec. 20, to buy back and redeem the property after a sheriff’s sale.

A Bloomfield Capital official did not immediately respond to an inquiry Friday about the auction and the earlier decision to pursue a sheriff’s sale over other options. A Rhodium Capital Advisors representative couldn’t be reached.

Early this month, a New Jersey construction company put a $2.2 million lien on the hotel property, saying it was only paid $330,000 on its $2.5 million contract.

It last operated as the Edward Hotel and Convention Center, having lost its Hyatt “flag” in 2012 because of deteriorating quality.

Edward Gong, a Chinese national living in Canada, bought the hotel for $20 million in 2016. But the property was later forfeited after Gong’s arrest in Canada on fraud and money laundering allegations. In the end, all criminal charges against Gong were withdrawn and he was never convicted of any offense, according to Canadian news reports.

The hotel sold for $18.25 million in October 2021 to a Rhodium Capital-linked entity in a sale handled by the U.S. Marshals.

Gong’s lawyer said he never received any money from that sale, and the Free Press has outstanding Freedom of Information Act requests for the destination of the sale proceeds.

The auction date was first reported by Crain’s Detroit.

The Detroit Free Press contributed to this report. Edited for style.