Nov. 18--The plot thickened Monday in the mysterious case of the Landmark Hotel.

A week ago, the owner of the $30 million luxury hotel being built on the Downtown Mall announced that major financing problems had emerged and predicted that all construction would halt by the end of Friday.

Yet more than a dozen construction workers showed up at the nine-story, 100-room hotel's site Monday morning and continued to work.

Halsey Minor, the hotel's owner and wealthy co-founder of CNET, did not immediately return a call for comment Monday. He has said that the Specialty Finance Group subsidiary of Silverton Bank in Atlanta had defaulted on payments of a $24 million loan financing the hotel's construction. As a result, he said, the project's contractors had not been paid since September.

Minor said that the hotel's construction would be delayed until he could secure new financing, a feat he expected would take a not inconsiderable amount of time.

The bank, however, has issued a statement contradicting Minor's assessment of the project's health, saying it had met all of the $24 million loan's payments to date and the project was moving forward.

"Construction continues at the project site and funding of the loan is proceeding per the terms specified

clearly in the loan agreement between the borrower and Specialty Finance Group," Silverton spokeswoman Cristi Kirisits said in the statement. "Any assertion otherwise is inaccurate."

Kirisits added that while the bank's policy is not to comment on specific projects, the bank disagrees with Minor's comments about the bank not holding up its end of the bargain.

"Please be advised that we disagree with Mr. Minor's comments regarding the project, and have responded directly to Mr. Minor's comments," she said in the statement.

In comments to C-Ville Weekly on Friday, Minor said that the Landmark Hotel's developer, Lee Danielson, was no longer attached to the project.

"I am the 100 percent owner," Minor wrote in an e-mail, according to the report. "The project has been closed due to a bank default. [Lee Danielson] is the former developer. We won't be needing his services when the project resumes."

On Monday, however, Danielson disputed Minor's claim that he had been sacked. When asked if he was still the project's developer, he replied, "I am."

Danielson, who developed the Charlottesville Ice Park and Regal Cinemas on the Downtown Mall, has maintained over the past week that construction of the Landmark Hotel would not be interrupted. He declined to comment Monday when asked why Minor's take on the project differs from his own.

"I'm out of the quoting business now," Danielson said. "We're not interested in going into the he said/she said. I'll just say the issue's not me."

Last week, Danielson said he was "shocked" to see that Minor was saying financing problems had derailed the project. The project was on track and ahead of schedule, he said.

"He's not really a real-estate guy," Danielson said last week. "He keeps his own counsel. I don't know why he says the things he does."

Minor has called Danielson's remarks "humorous" and added that if the project remained under way Monday, Danielson would be the "world's best developer."

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