The Paramount Bay, a project which began with a more than $200 million construction loan in 2006, and first broke ground a year before that, is now launching sales, according to World Property Channel. The project underwent a series of problems, from the deaths of two construction workers to overextension by primary lender Corus Bank. In 2009, the project fell through and was in limbo until this year, when iStar won a $262 million foreclosure judgment on the site, allowing it to move to auction. [more]

ST Residential, a unit of Starwood Capital Group, has sold the 240 unsold condominium units at Sunrise’s 396-unit Tao project in a $50 million bulk deal. Miami Beach-based Crescent Heights was the buyer, paying around $165 per foot, or $209,000 per unit, and plans to rent them out. The deal was brokered by International Sales Group. Starwood acquired Tao after the failure of the project’s original lender, Corus Bank. [Miami Herald] 

Following a $160-per-square-foot price cut at the new Mint at Riverfront condominium in Downtown Miami, owner ST Residential sold off 100 individual units — or around one fifth of the inventory — during the fourth quarter of 2010, according to a new report from Bal Harbour-based brokerage Condo Vultures. The average price per square foot was $326, for a total of $37.6 million in sales, up from just $8.3 million in the third quarter, when 11 individual units were sold. Since 2011 began, ST has sold two condos for an average of $295 per square foot. Original prices at the Mint tower, which was developed by Key International, began at $489 per square foot and ranged as high as $563 per square foot. ST gained control of the Mint after acquiring the construction loan from the failed Corus Bank. TRD

The 298-unit Trump International in Fort Lauderdale, a beachfront condominium hotel project to which Donald Trump licensed his name, is now in foreclosure. The mortgage is another belonging to Corus Bank, this time in the amount of $139 million. Construction on the Trump hotel began five years ago, and was slated to open in 2009, but it has not opened. In October, Starwood purchased a 40 percent stake in the now-failed Corus Bank, forming Corus Construction Ventures. [SFBJ]

Dallas REIT Behringer Harvard has purchased the senior mortgage debt of the 408-unit Palms of Monterrey, a Fort Myers apartment complex comprised of three 17-story buildings. The company paid $25.4 million, or roughly $62,000 per unit, to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which acted as a receiver for Corus Bank. The previous owner, Fort Myers-based BTS Monterrey Holdings, took out a $69 million mortgage in 2006. [GlobeSt]

High-profile Boca Raton developer Gregory Talbott has lost another property to foreclosure in a $4.5 million judgment as his spiral of defaults continues. The property, which is located at 390 E. Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton, will be auctioned Nov. 12. Meanwhile, SMA Partners, a Coral Gables lender, filed a $6.4 million foreclosure suit against the planned Infinity II Lofts in Miami. Corus Bank assigned the $12 million mortgage to SMA before it failed last month. [SFBJ] and [SFBJ]

An investment group headed by Starwood Capital Group beat out the Related Companies, Lone Star Funds and Colony Capital to win a 40 percent stake in a company created by bank regulators to contain the assets of Corus Bank. The bank was seized last month by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and has a $4.5 billion loan portfolio that includes many failed South Florida condominium projects. The winning consortium includes TPG Capital (formerly Texas Pacific Group), Perry Capital and WLR LeFrak, a venture that involves investor Wilbur Ross and real estate company the LeFrak Organization. The winning bidder got the assets for a roughly 40 percent discount in a cash and debt deal.

The vulture investors circling Corus Bank probably won’t hang onto their $4 billion commercial real estate loan portfolio for long once they take it out of receivership. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which seized the Chicago bank Sept. 11 and turned banking operations over to MB Financial, is considering selling off the loan portfolio, which includes mortgages on many foreclosed South Florida condominium developments. Potential buyers of the loans include Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and his New York-based Related Companies, though nothing has been disclosed officially by the federal agency.

Florida condominium projects set forth the death spiral of Corus Bancshares, and new owner MB Financial Bank of Chicago is assuming Corus Bank’s 11 branches and $3 billion in cash and marketable securities. The bank still has over $1 billion worth of Florida condo loans to unload in the next 30 days, federal bank regulators say, including 13 with mortgages of more than $100 million. Problem projects include the 342 unsold units in the Tao condominium in Sunrise; the 216-unit Aventine at a Boynton Beach apartment complex; and a pending foreclosure lawsuit against the owner of the Onyx on the Bay condo in Miami, with a $44.1 million mortgage covering 41 unsold units. Another 13 projects are targeted in the aftermath of Corus’ failure.

South Florida condos continue to wreak havoc on the books of troubled
Chicago-based Corus Bank. Corus announced it sold off the construction
loan on a luxury condo conversion project at Miami Beach’s historic
Caribbean Hotel for less than a third of its initial value. The bank
sold the loan for $50 million after issuing it for $127 million. The
buyer, 3737 Caribbean Partners, affiliated with Melohn Properties, an
investment group in New York, did not disclose the current value of the
note. Developer Caribbean Group Owner sold 13 units at prices ranging
from $2.8 million to $1 million. [more]