Fortune, Château close $212M loan for Ritz-Carlton Sunny Isles

Fortune International Group and Château Group closed on $163.11 million in construction financing for the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Sunny Isles Beach, boosting their mortgage to $212.11 million. 

Records show the developers, Sunny Isles Property Venture LLC, secured the loan from Bank of the Ozarks, an active lender in South Florida and New York.

Fortune and Château broke ground on the 52-story, 212-unit tower in June, at the time telling The Real Deal that they were in the process of securing financing with a traditional lender.

As of June, the Ritz was more than 65 percent sold to buyers from the Northeast, South America and Europe, Manuel Grosskopf said. Prices start at $2.5 million, and units range from 1,605 square feet to 3,640 square feet.

Suffolk Construction is the general contractor for the project at 15701 Collins Avenue, which is slated to be completed by the end of 2018. It’s designed by Arquitectonica with interiors by Michele Bönan.

Construction financing has become more challenging to obtain because of the number of projects underway and the slowdown in sales, experts have said.

Defortuna told TRD in the summer that “the buyer and broker [communities] are still very interested” in the oceanfront project. “Certainly the market has slowed down somewhat,” he said. “Unfortunately, we were all spoiled with a very hot market the last few years.”