Commercial Developer Scott LaFavre’s company Eagle’s Rest Tree Farms voluntarily withdrew its bankruptcy declaration Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Minneapolis.

A clerk with the court said the case was dismissed.

LaFavre said he raised the capital to pay all of his creditors, after what he described as “a struggle.” He raised the money by selling personal assets, he said.

The action means he has possession of his tree farms but not the former Albert Lea Golf Club site now called Eagle’s Rest Development.

“Now I am 100 percent radar-locked into getting the next one done,” he said, referring to the Eagle’s Rest Development, which he declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy for on Dec. 19.

Eagle’s Rest Tree Farms and Eagle’s Rest Development are two separate companies.

Eagle’s Rest Tree Farms, a limited liability corporation, owns tree nurseries in Freeborn County and Rice County. The company is based at 2880 50th St. W. in Webster. LaFavre lives in Lakeville.

With his company, LaFavre purchased the 89-acre Wedge Tree Nursery from the local Wedge family in 2005 on a contract for deed.

In 2006, the Tribune reported he purchased the property for $552,000. He doesn’t have to pay the balance until 2016, the documents state, but until then, he makes semiannual payments to the Wedges.

He declared Chapter 12 bankruptcy on the property on Sept. 22.

“It’s tough times out there, especially if you’re a real estate developer,” LaFavre said.

The commercial developer will now turn his attention to Eagle’s Rest Development, known to many as the 100-acre former Albert Lea Golf Club. It is in foreclosure.

LaFavre initially purchased the former 18-hole golf club for the residential development in May of 2006. In April 2006, he announced his plans to bulldoze the property and build a 120-lot high-end residential neighborhood.

Since then, two notices of foreclosure, totaling more than $1 million, against the Eagle’s Rest development have been filed in the Freeborn County Recorder’s Office. Because the second notice, for $937,500, was not resolved, the land was put up for public auction.

At the auction on Dec. 20, 2007, mortgagor American Bank of St. Paul purchased the land for $1,031,521.92 in what was the only bid.

After that point, LaFavre had up to a year to redeem the property back for the amount the bank purchased it, plus interest. That deadline was Dec. 19.

That’s the day he filed bankruptcy with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. That gave him an additional 90 days to reorganize and get the funds together to redeem the property.

He declined to comment on how those efforts were going or if he expected to have to use the full 90-day period.