Abandoned - Indian Ridge Resort

[Music] what's up guys my name is jake and welcome to abandoned episode 66 in the town of branson missouri sits a ghost town really like no other this one however isn't a long vacant gold rush town from the late 1800s no this one is a suburban resort community that never made it to completion in fact the various unfinished mcmansions are part of a much much bigger development that was ultimately abandoned you might know these dilapidated structures from random photos on the internets or driving by them on family vacations or even from tick tock but the true story behind this failed development is often not talked about and it's one that ended up with a 1 000 acre development desolate sent five people to federal prison and left a small portion of the site sitting abandoned even today so join me on this special episode as we discover what happened to this astonishing project this is the indian ridge resort in branson missouri this episode is sponsored by curiosity stream get access to my streaming service nebula when you sign up for curiosity stream using the link in the description below it all began with jim shirato a man from springfield missouri who was a long time developer he saw value in the branson area as the area was already well established as a tourism destination smack dab in the ozarks branson was situated with rolling forested hills and beautiful bodies of water including table rock lake jim ended up purchasing around 116 acres on the shores of that very lake in the year 2000. he had big plans and as they formulated so did the continuation of his land acquisitions after around two years and over 18 million dollars spent shirado had acquired almost a thousand acres of land stretching from the shores of table rock lake all the way to highway 13 and 76. he now had well over 900 acres of land after almost five years of progressing with this plan in october of 2005 jim's development was revealed and boy was it a big one indian ridge resort was announced as a multi-generational resort community filled with mixed-use entertainment commercial and residential across this 1 000 acre project would sit over 2 400 homes a shopping center an eight-story hotel golf course and one of america's largest indoor water parks and when it was finished over 7 800 people would live within this vast complex all in all the project was set to cost around 1.6 billion dollars and was expected to open in 2010. of course when a development is this massive the decision was made to open it in phases with the sales center now open on the site prices for the first phase were released empty lots ranged from 77 to 216 000 with townhomes condos and log cabins ranging from 300 000 all the way to 1.3 million dollars for 2006 standards these were rather pricey however all 45 log homes sold out rather quickly and really the interest here was somewhat proven there's an excerpt from a family from maryland vacationing in branson when they came across the development signs they thought the project was the perfect place to relocate their family with easy access to a large city within driving distance yet also the serene landscape for a quiet life they ended up buying five lots with plans to relocate their family business there according to sharado this made sense as the housing market in branson was underutilized and rather untapped i'm sure many people had considered this a sound investment indian ridge was certainly one if not the largest private development in the area with apparently lots of interest from third-party developers wanting in ultimately ground was broken on january 23 2006 with governor matt blunt there at the ceremony with infrastructure work now underway jim stated that they could expect all phases of indian ridge to be sold out by 2008. boy what a date to choose by 2007 most of the infrastructure for phase 1 was nearing completion including the several miles of roads sewers water lines and concrete work however progress from the outside seemed slow and jim chalked it up to being the slow permitting and zoning process for continued work by this time shirado had sold portions of the land to external development investors under their company north shore investments jim would continue to focus on the big picture stuff including the master plans and zoning while north shore would gather funding and handle development things ultimately ramped back up with paved roads laid down and vertical construction finally commencing on the first 13 themed townhomes near the entrance to indian ridge these were constructed in a bit of a rush which made jim a little unsure as to their process as the structures were being put up without any infrastructure perhaps a bit of a red flag but we'll get back to that later this however also coincided with the economic crash of 2008 and as we all know it devastated new development usually in the form of skyrocketing interest rates and the cancellation of loans in the case of indian ridge however it was even worse jim's primary lender to the project was the columbia bank and trust and they were essentially taken over by the federal deposit insurance corporation or the fdic to make matters worse shirado's development neighbors also allegedly had loans at columbia and over 50 others with the fdic now in control gerardo's 13 million dollars worth of funding was cancelled as was north shore's private landing as well this completely shut down work at the sights with the unfinished townhomes and dirt roads laying out the first phase indian ridge was suddenly put on an indefinite hold things got even worse as a federal investigation was opened on several key people at north shore investments and on jim sharado himself they were being investigated for fraud and because of this the fdic halted any loans to the indian ridge project meanwhile jim was spending around a thousand dollars a week in lawyer fees trying to get that loan cleared once again to proceed with development however this was no use and on top of a lawsuit filed by the states over alleged late pollution from erosion runoff jim shirado's dream was quickly slipping away both parties at indian ridge ultimately pleaded guilty to the pollution charges and were ordered to collectively pay over three hundred thousand dollars in fines shirado claims that once these fines were fully paid off that they would go back to work this however never happened years passed with little to no work happening on the site eventually jim sold the land to a colorado-based developer which meant he had given up on the project meanwhile indian ridge was pretty much dead with a dramatic revelation on the horizon in december of 2013 david drake and donald snyder two key players in the north shore investments company had been charged each with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering both their wives were also charged with one count of concealing a felony later james clarkson who served as the mortgage broker for the company was also charged essentially they had lied to the banks by inflating their numbers using that loan money off of false pretenses for personal use and to fund other construction projects they also failed to meet the required amount of construction for those loans which is likely why the 13 townhomes they did construct were done so quickly and without the proper infrastructure it's also likely why they look so bad all five were sentenced with only clarkson receiving two years with drake and snyder now serving five years in federal prison clarkson alone was ordered to pay 14 million dollars in restitution back to the banks jim shirado on the other hand was cleared of all wrongdoing but that was overshadowed by the other party's fraud charges and the bad public perception of the site in early 2014 the fdic put the remaining plot of land coined parcel 34 up for auction it was the one section of land that the original north shore investments people had developed and now the abandoned townhomes were up for bid they were eventually purchased by a company in arkansas yet really nothing had been done with it by 2017 four of the structures had been demolished while the other nine had been considered salvageable the buildings left behind appeared to be mansions that's where the cookie cutter mcmansion label came from however they are indeed duplexes hideous ones at that and really just stripped out shells the surrounding land is now a vast overgrown ghost town seemingly totally forgotten that was at least until june 2018 when the colorado-based company brookwood group had announced they were seeking out new investors and developers to help build out a now 810-acre master-planned community it's called the ridge at table rock and really does sort of mirror jim's former indian ridge master plan the ridge would also be done in phases and as a site of progress the company invested a million dollars in building a brand new intersection entrance for the project these initial plans call for commercial and entertainment uses at the entrance along highway 76 and a hotel resort along table rock lake you'll notice too that on this master plan the only developed piece of land in the original indian ridge project is omitted and it's because it's now owned by a third party and that brings us to today with nothing really happening outside of unfulfilled promises 300 feet of new road and ugly shells of an ambitious future that never came to be i think jim sharado genuinely wanted to build something incredible he dedicated years of his life to indian ridge and put a lot on the line for it he told us that once all the dust had settled he had lost over 8 million dollars of his personal money in the end his war with the fdic was an uphill battle as they had taken on so many insolvent institutions that really they just made it so difficult to get money and really who knows if jim would have even been able to succeed if he did get the money millions of people had lost savings and it really wasn't the most stable time to spend money especially on real estate it also wouldn't have made a difference to drake snyder and clarkson as they would have likely still been indicted and went to prison critically damaging the reputation of indian ridge the grand vision for this enormous plot of land still remains but the ambition has certainly tapered off there's talk that the current developers are lenient on what types of projects even get built at the entrance i think it'll certainly detract from what they're trying to do especially if it's like a 7-11 at the entrance to the supposedly beautiful master-planned community that's perhaps a secondary issue to their now separated neighboring parcel of land which is now just abandoned structures that they have more or less no control over not exactly great optics for prospective home buyers that parcel of land is also up for sale at 2.5 million dollars but interest seems limited really only time will tell what will happen to this failure in the ozarks if you like this video then there's a good chance you'll enjoy other online creators who make educational videos and short documentaries like mine nebula is a streamy award nominated platform built by and for creators like myself who specialize in diving into interesting topics youtube's algorithms are a tricky thing to navigate so many of my fellow creators turn to nebula to host some of their exclusive content that might not always work on this platform if you visit my channel on nebula you can see my videos a day early and watch them including this one ad free partnered with nebula is curiosity stream curiosity stream is a streaming service filled with thousands of curated high quality non-fiction titles and documentaries across all types of topics just the other day i binged a show called the demolition man which is literally just an interesting show about demolishing old sometimes abandoned buildings it's fascinating and it's the kind of content that keeps bringing me back but what makes this deal even better is that curiosity stream has partnered with nebula if you sign up using my special link curiositystream.combsf you'll get 26 off an annual plan that makes it an incredible deal of just 14.79 for access to two incredible sights for an entire year anyway guys my name is jake and thank you very much for watching [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 655,297

Keywords: abandoned, creepy, failed development, silver dollar city, tik tok, McMansions, Branson, table rock lake, 2008, economic crash, billions, federal investigation, indian ridge fail, Jake williams, bright sun films, HD, new, 2022, 2021, documentary, history of, clean, family friendly, mansions, abandoned townhouse, never finished, ghost town, america, decay, urbex, inside, Branson McMansions, prison, investigation, fraud, financial crime, true crime, never built abandoned

Id: E65YPxMMh1w

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 05 2021