CARY - The residents of The Amberly community being built in western Cary may have to wait a little longer for local shopping to arrive.

The 67 acres set aside for Amberly's shopping district is now up for sale following a bank foreclosure that took back the property from the Virginia real estate investors behind the project.

The land, at the corner of O'Kelly Chapel Road and Yates Store Road, is just a small part of the 1,100 acres set aside for the master-planned community. Construction on homes there has been ongoing for several years, and eventually, there may be as many as 5,000 houses on the site.

But the 67-acre Amberly Town Center land is supposed to house the majority of the community's retail and office space.

Fifth Third Bank foreclosed on the property, which was previously owned by a holding company of L.M. Sandler & Sons in Virginia Beach, Va.

Calls to Sandler were not immediately returned.

Fifth Third is now trying to sell the property.

The scenario highlights how the credit crunch continues to dog developers and depress property values.

Fifth Third Bank took back the land back for $9.75 million last month, according to Wake County real estate records.

That's 43 percent below the tax value, which was assessed at the top of the commercial real estate boom.

Coldwell Banker Commercial TradeMark Properties of Raleigh has been retained by the bank to try to sell the property for $14.3 million, or roughly $215,000 per acre.

Mark Howe, senior advisor at TradMark, said he's had interest from in-state and out-of-state developers and has also had interest from several potential tenants, though no deals have been signed.

So far, the land is undeveloped, and there is no timeline for when construction will begin.

It is zoned for up to 240,000 square feet of shops, 125,000 square feet of offices and 100 residential units, though that could change if the new owner wants to amend the site plan and go back through the town's approval process.

Buyers, however, are scarce these days. Lending for real estate projects has all but dried up, and developers carrying a lot of debt are having a hard time selling land or refinancing debt. That has stalled an increasing number of large retail projects, said David Connor, senior vice president for Lincoln Harris in Raleigh, which has also developed several shopping centers in Cary.

"Banks have been willing to amend loans for developers," he said. "They don't necessarily want to take these properties back. The values are definitely impaired. Even if they take it back, they may still be underwater on what the loan balance was. The banks aren't able to take the properties back but they aren't able to afford new construction loans."

With the prime location of the Amberly community, Connor said he is sure the center will be developed eventually.

"Ultimately, that's going to be a good site," he said. "It's just a timing issue. There's still fairly healthy new home sales out in northwest Cary."

Companies owned by Sandler started showing signs of trouble a year ago. In July 2008, the group, which has planned thousands of homes at communities such as 12 Oaks in Holly Springs and Renaissance Park in Raleigh, owed contractors almost $12 million for grading, engineering and other work on Triangle projects. The company has faced similar cash-flow issues at projects in Florida and Virginia.

Staff writer Jack Hagel contributed to this report.