The Aventura Mall will be the site of a new retail chain in which Miami Heat star LeBron James is a minority investor. The first in a series of UNKNWN stores, which was first planned to be in Akron, Ohio, comes from James’ friendship with the Fontainebleau Hotel’s Jeffrey Soffer. “LeBron James has become a world-renowned brand and we’re very excited to partner his new retail concept,” said Ted Siegal, vice president and director of leasing for Aventura Mall. [Miami Herald]
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Dubai World and Turnberry Ltd. may retain control of the Fontainebleau Miami, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Holders of the $620 million construction loan on the property could soon approve a proposal that would inject $100 million into the hotel. According to the terms of the deal, the new equity would come from Dubai World and Turnberry, and the loan would be extended until 2016. Turnberry’s Jeffrey Soffer began a $500 million renovation of the hotel in 2005, but lost the Las Vegas Fontainebleau earlier this year in bankruptcy proceedings. [WSJ]
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The fallout from the failed Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino project continues to plague developer Jeffrey Soffer, who has been hit with a $168 million lawsuit from Lehman Brothers. The fallen investment bank wants Soffer to cover the loan he personally guaranteed for
the ambitious expansion of the Fontainebleau franchise to the Sunset
Strip. This sets the stage for a major legal clash between Soffer and
creditors of his casino project, which was sold to Carl Icahn last
month for a paltry $150 million. The project had previously been valued at $2 billion.
That’s not the end of Soffer’s troubles: the Miami Beach Fontainebleau
resort faces more than $60 million in claims by contractors who worked
on its $500 million renovation, as well as a $660 million overdue
construction loan from Bank of America. [Miami Herald]

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn will take control of the bankrupt, incomplete Fontainebleau Las Vegas by default, after submitting the only qualifying bid for the casino resort. Court papers filed this week canceled the auction for the property, which was scheduled for Thursday in Miami. Icahn Nevada Gaming Acquisition submitted the only qualified bid, for $156.5 million, including financing, and the sale could be finalized by Jan. 27. Eve Karasik, attorney for the Chapter 11 examiner, said two other, unidentified bidders didn’t include deposits and couldn’t demonstrate the necessary financial health. Penn National Gaming dropped out of the bidding race Jan. 14. The 63-story Fontainebleau, which was about two-thirds done when about 70 percent complete at a cost of $2 billion when developer Jeffrey Soffer filed for bankruptcy on the project in June, is on 27 acres at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip. Completion costs are estimated at $1.5 billion.

Casino operator Penn National Gaming seems to be looking make it big with the help of one of Las Vegas’ biggest busts. After weeks of negotiations, Penn bid $102 million for the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, an unfinished and bankrupt casino hotel that spent about $2 billion on construction and development, according to court records. Developer Jeffrey Soffer, of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, is pursuing a sale of the Vegas Fontainebleau after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on the stalled project in June. Other casino companies also have toured the Fontainebleau site and signed the documents necessary to prepare a bid for the project, said Howard Karawan, chief restructuring officer for Fontainebleau Resorts. [Miami Herald]

A year after a celebrity-studded gala reopening of the $650 million renovation of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, financial woes have overshadowed the glitz. Contractors say they were ordered to work double- or triple-time to get the Fontainebleau ready for the Nov. 15, 2008 party, replete with Victoria’s Secret models stalking the runway in a televised lingerie show, and are owed more than $60 million. Bankruptcy looms as a possibility, a senior executive admitted, saying the $600 million construction loan weighs heavily on its finances. The investment arm of the Dubai government, which paid developer Jeffrey Soffer’s ownership group $375 million for a 50 percent stake in the Fontainebleau, exercised its option to take over restructuring negotiations if there were problems with the resort’s loans. Nakheel Leisure managing director Hamza Mustaffa said his company was working with Soffer. [Miami Herald]

Miami bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol, who is presiding over the Fontainebleau Las Vegas case, took a tour of the unfinished project, which developer Jeffrey Soffer launched in 2007 as a spinoff of his Fontainebleau Miami Beach. The Florida property was undergoing a $500 million renovation at the time. Soffer filed for Chapter 11 protection after $2 billion in construction funding got the Las Vegas hotel only a little more than half-way to completion. On his tour, the judge praised the project as “magnificent,” saying that had the $500 million renovation happened two years earlier or two or three years later, it would, in all likelihood, have succeeded. Casino operator Penn National Gaming has offered substantially’ less than $300 million for the unfinished project, said lawyer Scott Baena, who represents Soffer. [Miami Herald]

Developer Jeffrey Soffer has recused himself from settling the myriad legal issues surrounding the bankrupt Fontainebleau Las Vegas in an attempt to thwart accusations about a conflict of interest. The developer and head of Fontainebleau Resorts, which runs the Vegas Fontainebleau project and the original Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, guaranteed at least part of the $200 million in debt on the retail part of the project. That section is not bankrupt, though its prospects are limited with the hotel’s bankruptcy. [Miami Herald]   [more]

The troubled Las Vegas outpost of Miami Beach’s landmark Fontainebleau hotel may be headed to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Creditors say developer Jeffrey Soffer can’t get out from under the $3 billion project’s battered finances and want him out. The Miami Beach hotel isn’t involved in the project, but the Las Vegas hotel is the Soffer family’s largest endeavor. It’s about $1.5 billion short of completion and has been in bankruptcy court for the past four months.

A report in Friday’s Wall Street Journal said the Fontainebleau Miami
Beach could face a declaration of default by its lenders after an
extension for payments expired at the end of August. Lenders have about
$60 million in unpaid contractor claims, the paper reported. The hotel
has about $670 million in construction debt. This compounds troubles in
the Soffer family, the principal owners, as Jeffrey Soffer fights
bankruptcy with the Fontainebleau Las Vegas. [more]