Rok family’s mortgage firm seeks to foreclose on Aventura dev site

A Miami developer’s plan to build a seven-story medical office building in Aventura appears to be in jeopardy. 

Aventura-based Rok Lending last week filed a foreclosure lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against the Gomez Development Group entity that owns the 1.6-acre development site at 21291 Northeast 28th Avenue, court records show.

Rok Lending, the mortgage arm of the Rok family, alleges Gomez Development, a Miami-based firm led by principal Marlon Gomez, defaulted on a $15 million loan issued in April of last year. Gomez Development stopped making monthly payments in July, the lawsuit alleges.

Rok Lending’s lawyer, Daniel Lavin, did not respond to an email request for comment. In an email, Marlon Gomez said his firm has found a private lender to refinance the Rok Lending loan. 

“Despite challenges in the commercial office real estate market, we invested millions of our own capital into this project,” Gomez said. “We are communicating openly with our current lender regardless of any claims being made. We have successfully repaid over $100 million in loans previously in the last few years and plan to do the same with this one.” 

In 2021, Gomez Development paid $19 million for the development site, records show. The same year, the firm landed a $45 million construction loan from Parkview Financial to build a 142,000-square-foot medical office building. At the time, Marlon Gomez said the project would be completed in 2022. 

In August, A.C. Schultes of Florida sued Gomez Development for allegedly failing to pay $155,100 for providing disposal wells at the development site, court records. The lawsuit was settled in January. The terms were not disclosed. 

Marlon Gomez said his firm has completed the infrastructure and foundation work for the Aventura medical office project, and recently commenced the vertical stage of development. 

Rok Lending, led by CEO Bryan Morjain, recently provided $10.1 million in financing for a Fort Lauderdale self-storage facility and a $5 million acquisition loan for a development site in Miami’s Little Havana, the firm’s website states. 

Gomez Development is part of a joint venture that is planning a half-million-square-foot project with up to 425 apartments and ground-floor retail in Miami’s Spring Garden neighborhood. The partnership paid $17 million for the development site near the Miami Health District and Overtown. 

In 2022, Gomez Development and its partner, Emir Dereli of the Dereli Family Office, sold a seven-story apartment building in Fontainebleau, an unincorporated neighborhood in west Miami-Dade County. Norfolk, Virginia-based Harbor Group International paid $50 million for the multifamily project called 275 FontaineParc.