A bankruptcy judge has ordered the auction of the remaining vacant condos in The Place At Channelside, an insolvent development near the Port of Tampa that threw itself on the mercy of the court in March.

The 11 a.m. October 5 auction takes in 171 of 245 condos at The Place, ranging in size from 596-square-foot studios to a mammoth 3,665-square-foot penthouse. The whole portfolio will be sold as one unit with a minimum reserve price of $17.25-million.

Based on the minimum bid requirement, units could sell for as little as $100,000 a pop. That would be grand larceny, in the metaphorical sense. Scan the listings and you'll see modest sized units there selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Developer Fida Sirdar of Key Developers Group signed up buyers for two 8-story condo towers in 2005. But by 2007, buyers were suing by the dozens to back out of deals that looked more and more like sucker bets. Based on those boomtown prices, it would have taken years for buyers to recoup their investment.

Let's face it: Whoever can come up with $17-million is going to make a ton of money. The 2.1-acre site comes with ground-floor shop space, a parking garage and other extras.

This probably won't be the last condo-related auction: Major projects such as The Towers at Channelside and Trump Tower Tampa are also inching their way through bankruptcy court.

Trump Tower is little more than a lot on the Hillsborough River, but developers expressed fear last month that their multi-million-dollar property is a prime fire sale candidate.