The Ritz-Carlton Residences Palm Beach

South Florida’s residential market, once barren and now booming, was buoyed by an influx of foreigners, led by Latin Americans. But a new player could be emerging from the Far East: China.

Largely quiet for much of the real estate rebound in Florida, Chinese buyers are beginning to consider residential investments in the area.

“It’s the first wave [of Chinese buyers],” said Ophir Sternberg, managing partner at Lionheart Capital, which owns the Ritz-Carlton Residences Palm Beach. “We think a lot of this is due to the recent downturn in the real estate market in China in the last couple of quarters. People that made a lot of money in China are now looking overseas to invest their money, and buy some prime real estate.” [more]

Pryor Cashman Real Estate Litigation Group Chairman Todd Soloway and the Ritz-Carlton Fort LauderdaleThe developer of the former St. Regis Fort Lauderdale, now a Ritz-Carlton, won $44 million from Starwood Hotels this month, after a New York judge found St. Regis’ parent company wrongfully quit a management contract it signed. According to Hotel News Now, the judgment could have significant ramifications in the industry.

As the Sun-Sentinel reported, in 2000 developer Castillo Grand solicited Starwood to sign a 20-year management contract for his 166-room hotel, located at 1 North Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard, so he could raise prices. The hotel finally opened in May 2007, but Starwood and Castillo were already fighting. One year later, Starwood quit its management contract and accused Castillo of poor work on the building. [more]

Sherwood “Woody” Weiser, a hotel developer and one of Miami’s leading philanthropists, died today at the age of 80 after a battle with cancer, the Miami Herald reported.
Since 1970, Weiser and his business partner Donald Lefton built or managed at least 100 hotels and casinos around the U.S., Bahamas, Canada and Mexico, but were locally known for building Miami’s Grand Bay Hotel, the city’s first five-star resort, and more recently the Ritz Carlton on Key Biscayne.
“This man was truly an icon in the City of Miami,” Lefton said. “Nobody didn’t like Woody Weiser. Everybody knew him and if they didn’t know him, they knew of him.” [Miami Herald] [more]

The Ritz-Carlton hotel in Coconut Grove has been purchased by a joint partnership between Miami-based Gencom and the Continental Companies, according to property records. The hotel, which is located at 3300 SW 27th Avenue, is owned by Grove Ocean Condo. A Gencom spokesperson said there were no plans to renovate the 115-room hotel, which opened its doors in 2002. [Miami Herald]
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NoBe Bay in Miami Beach

A joint venture between two developers has purchased the last remaining unfinished Miami Beach condominium complex, the NoBe Bay. Pordes Residential negotiated the deal for Arnaud Karsenti, principal of
13th Floor Investments, and Inigo Ardid, principal of Key International, for the
98-unit Nobe Bay, which is located at 6700 Indian Creek Drive. “The acquisition of NoBe By is a very interesting one relative to replacement costs,” Karsenti told The Real Deal. “This is one of the last few transactions in the Miami bulk market that can generate returns for the investor while still delivering value to the end user.” The project was developed by the Merco Group in 2005, with Regions Bank as the primary lender.
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A Morgan Stanley portfolio of eight high-end CNL Hotels & Resorts properties has been seized by a group of lenders in a $600 million debt restructuring deal, sources told Bloomberg News. The lenders, New York-based hedge fund Paulson & Co., Winthrop Realty Trust and Capital Trust, had originally ponied up $1.5 billion in senior debt, $1 billion in mezzanine debt and another $800 million in corporate debt to help finance Morgan Stanley’s $6.7 billion acquisition of the resorts in 2007. But Morgan Stanley has since been struggling with the health of boom-time real estate acquisitions, having racked up $4.4 billion in such losses in 2008 and 2009. The resorts involved in the deal included PGA Tour host venue Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami, the Ritz-Carlton Orlando and JW Marriott Orlando at the Grande Lake Resorts. [Bloomberg]

A 242-unit Singer Island project that began in 2006 is seeing strong sales activity after a bulk buy and the addition of new management. Since the Ritz-Carlton officially took over last month, there have been seven sales at the property, said Carolyn Block-Ellert, co-owner of Premier Sales Group. After an average sales price of around $803,000 per unit in the bulk deal, the range of units extends from $700,000 to $10 million. Lionheart Capital swooped in on the biggest bulk deal in Palm Beach County and the second-largest of 2010 in South Florida in the early summer. While a number of private equity firms have taken steps to maximize returns, from renovations to remodeling upon assuming control, Lionheart did something different: a rebranding. [more]

The Seville Hotel South Beach has been sold to an affiliate of Courtyard
by Marriott for $57.5 million in a short sale allowed by lender First
Bank Puerto Rico, which has dismissed the $67 million foreclosure
lawsuit. The
shuttered 12-story hotel is located at 2901 Collins Avenue and sits on 3
acres. It was purchased in 2005 for $25 million by 2901 Beach Ventures,
a partnership with Fortune International and Lionstone. The hotel was
intended to be redeveloped into a residential property managed by
Ritz-Carlton but no major work has taken place. [SFBJ]

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Bill Marriott’s annual winter vacation in Fort Lauderdale is drawing to a close, and for the 20th straight year, the Marriott International chief executive, is flying the flag for his eponymous brand and for Fort Lauderdale itself, even choosing the 650-room Harbor Beach Marriott over the company’s ultra-luxury Ritz-Carlton. His four-week break mixed work and leisure, as it has since he started the tradition of escaping from his Bethesda, Md., headquarters for a few weeks of warmer weather. This year, in addition to visits to 42 hotels — 38 of them run by Marriott and four by competitors, as well as a daily routine of conference calls, Marriott also concentrated some energy to Haitian quake relief, arranging a $500,000 donation through his family foundation. [Miami Herald]

Travelers stretching their budgets are sticking to basics when it comes to their accommodations, and developers of no-frills hotels have taken note. Developer Robert Finvarb, who first picked out a spot six years ago next to Burger King and Route 1 for his Marriott Courtyard in Coconut Grove, will this week open the budget hotel in a much more desirable area than originally planned. The hotel, down the road from the Ritz-Carlton, has balconies overlooking Biscayne Bay. Despite the growing number of troubled commercial loans, from which South Florida is not expected to recover beforel 2011, less expensive properties have a more reliable customer base, and budget hoteliers have grown more confident about investing in South Florida as a result. [Miami Herald]