Lender sues to foreclose on waterfront Bay Harbor Islands condo site

An affiliate of Allure Development Group is being sued for foreclosure over a stalled waterfront condo development in Bay Harbor Islands. 

Saluda Grade Alternative Mortgage Trust 2023-BC3 sued BHI The Club 2 LLC over the remaining $10.2 million unpaid balance on a $16.5 million loan, according to records and real estate database Vizzda. The loan backs the development site where the boutique condo project called Sophie is planned. 

The company that owns the half-acre site at 1047-1055 92nd Street is managed by Alejandro Ensinck, Gianfranco Speciale, Daniel Masallera, Nicolas Livsit, Oscar Acosta and Marcos Juejati, records show. 

Acosta, one of the developers, said he is resolving the foreclosure lawsuit. Construction was suspended at the end of March. 

The lender’s lawyer, Nardo Dorsin, an attorney with Miami-based Polsinelli, declined to comment.

Two buyers who were in contract to purchase a unit on the third floor of the planned building for about $1 million sued the developer in April, alleging that it defaulted on the purchase agreement by failing to complete the project and the sale of the unit by the end of January of this year. A final judgment ordering the developer to pay the buyers their $257,000 deposit back, plus interest, was entered earlier this month. 

BHI The Club 2 LLC paid $4.4 million for the site in 2016, property records show. Presales of Sophie, a seven-story, 26-unit development, launched in 2016. The units are planned to range from 1,200 square feet to about 2,500 square feet. 

New York-based Saluda Grade took over the mortgage in May, records show. The original lender, Construction Loan Services II, provided the financing in 2022. It matured in October of last year. 

Loan Services II and the developer entered into a forbearance agreement in November, requiring the developer to pay an additional $82,500 fee on top of the lender payments, according to the complaint. But the developer failed to pay the loan by the new termination date of December 20, 2023, and the developer failed to complete the project on time, the complaint states. 

Lenders have filed more foreclosure lawsuits over the past year in South Florida, but most have been against commercial real estate borrowers. The new development condo market has remained stronger than other asset classes. In a planned condo project, the purchasers are at risk of losing their deposits if the project doesn’t get completed and a lender takes over. A number of luxury condo projects are planned or underway in Bay Harbor Islands. Regency Development Group, Ian Bruce Eichner’s Continuum Company, Alexis Bogomolni’s ABH Development Group and Ari Pearl and Jonathan Leifer all have developments in the two-island town.

Read more

Residential

South Florida

Regency Development launches sales of third Bay Harbor Islands condo project

Residential

South Florida

Isaac Kodsi to relaunch sales of stalled Coconut Grove condo development 

South Florida

ABH buys Bay Harbor Islands waterfront condo dev site