UPDATED Aug. 17, 11:15 a.m.: Turnberry Associates just scored a $259 million construction loan for Turnberry Ocean Club Residences, the luxury condo tower rising in Sunny Isles Beach, The Real Deal has learned.
At least seven months in the making, the loan from Bank of the Ozarks closed on Friday, a spokesperson for Turnberry told TRD. The financing, which has not yet cleared records, ranks among the largest in South Florida so far this year.
Turnberry Ocean Club at 18501 Collins Avenue, developed by the Soffers’ Turnberry Associates, broke ground in November. Site work is progressing, and the project is expected to go vertical by the end of this year and should be completed by the end of 2019, the company said. In November, Turnberry co-chairman and CEO Jeffrey Soffer said that the firm was in talks with lenders and that the number of new development projects, coupled with the challenges of building a condo tower in Sunny Isles had affected construction timing.
The 154-unit, 54-story oceanfront tower has now reached $300 million in presales, according to a release, but a spokesperson declined to disclose a percentage of sales. The project reported sales at 40 percent in an ISG report for the first quarter. According to documents filed with the New York Attorney General’s Real Estate Finance Bureau in 2015 for the project’s registration in New York, the total sellout is $987.87 million, which would equate to 30 percent in presales.
One Sotheby’s International Realty is the exclusive sales and marketing firm. A sales director previously told TRD that buyers hail from Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Northeast, but an update was not available, according to the spokesperson.
Designed by architects Carlos Zapata Studios of New York and Robert Swedroe of Miami, Turnberry Ocean Club’s units will range from 2,750 square feet to 10,000 square feet with three, four, five, and six-bedroom floor plans that extend over two and three levels. Prices start at $3.9 million and go up to $35 million.
The property will feature a three-story, $100 million Sky Club located 300 feet above sea level with cantilevered “sunrise” and “sunset” infinity-edge swimming pools. In all, the project will have more than 70,000 square feet of amenities including three common area swimming pools, indoor and outdoor fitness centers, two restaurants, three bars, a sunset lounge, a hydrotherapy spa, ocean view cabanas, a pet retreat, a nail and blow-dry salon and a sky theater.
Owners also will have membership privileges at Turnberry Isle Resort, which offers two Raymond Floyd-designed championship golf courses, a spa, Bourbon Steak restaurant by Michael Mina, and the Cañas Tennis Center. Ocean Club residents will also have access to preferred rates at Fontainebleau Aviation, the private airport owned and operated by Turnberry Associates.
Turnberry Associates, one of the largest privately owned real estate firms in South Florida, has developed residential, hospitality, retail and commercial projects, including Turnberry Ocean Colony, Porto Vita, Turnberry Isle Resort, Fontainebleau Miami Beach and Aventura Mall, which is adding a new wing. Turnberry, together with LeFrak, is also developing SoLē Mia, a mixed-use, master planned community in North Miami.
The $259 million loan joins other large South Florida construction financings granted so far this year. In April, Ugo Colombo’s CMC Group’s Brickell Flatiron scored $236 million in financing — a $138.5 million mortgage from Bank of the Ozarks and a $97.5 million mezzanine loan from RFR Realty, and in March, Dan Kodsi’s Paramount Miami Worldcenter received $285 million in financing from Inbursa Bank and BC Immigration Fund.
Harunobu Coryne contributed reporting.