Barclays North, Inc. to
close its doors

Housing market takes its toll on local company and economy Barclays North, Inc. currently has their buildings on South Lake up for sale. The Fourth of July will be anything but a celebration for Patrick McCourt, CEO of Barclays North, Inc. who will be closing their doors on that day.
Barclays was once one of the largest employers in Lake Stevens with over 100 employees at one time. After slowly laying off employees over the past few months, the company will officially close its doors this weekend.

The recent down trend in housing prices all over the country has taken its toll on the company. One reason is that they not only bought land here in Washington but also purchased raw land in other states including Texas, South Carolina, Idaho, Oregon and Nevada.

The land was bought for national companies throughout other states where the housing market is in more dire straits than it is here at home, leaving Barclays with thousands of lots and millions of dollars in debt.
Barclays would buy raw land, obtain all necessary permits and then sell the land to national homebuilders such as Quadrant Homes, Centex and D.R. Horton. When housing prices started plummeting, builders stopped buying the land.

Several years ago McCourt and his company built the office buildings known as South Lake near Tom Thumb on the south side of town. Currently, those buildings are up for sale.

The company has not filed for bankruptcy but is continuing to work with lenders to pay off their loans in hopes to avoid the bankruptcy process.
Once hitting over $45 million in sales, the company is now facing dozens of creditors and a lengthy list of lawsuits.

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