The owner of a recently completed, yet troubled, Aventura mixed-use project is facing foreclosure after allegedly defaulting on $49.6 million mortgage debt.
An affiliate of Las Vegas-based Dornin Investment Group last week sued Medical District Developments, managed by Felix Martinez Jansen in Aventura, which owns 1212 Aventura at 21290 Biscayne Boulevard. The day after publication, the manager of M.D. Holdings Development, the entity that owns Medical District Developments, was changed to Juan Carlos Franco, corporate records show. Martinez Jansen told The Real Deal that he is not M.D. Holding’s manager and that Franco was supposed to have updated the corporate records weeks ago.
The lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, also names as defendants 13 contractors that filed liens between January and this month totaling nearly $950,000 in work that allegedly hasn’t been paid.
The contractors include Coconut Grove-based Arquitectonica, which designed the project, and Aventura-based Rieber Developments, which managed construction of 1212 Aventura.
“Medical District Developments owes my company and multiple other companies money,” Rieber Developments CEO Bernardo Rieber said in an email. “Dornin mentions all of us seeking to wipe out the construction debt owed to us.”
Medical District Developments hired Rieber Developments shortly after acquiring the 1.8-acre site for $2.9 million in 2019, records show. 1212 Aventura consists of 163 assisted living apartments, 39 medical offices spanning 25,796 square feet and 29,684 square feet of retail.
In 2021, Medical District Developments increased an existing $15 million loan from Coconut Grove-based BridgeInvest to $63.5 million. But a year later, the property owner allegedly defaulted on the loan by failing to invest its own capital to complete the project. BridgeInvest warned Medical District developments that the project had a shortfall of $3.7 million of equity capital to cover cost overruns, the lawsuit states.
BridgeInvest granted Medical District Developments two forbearances in 2022 and 2023. The second forbearance agreement required the property owner to place $15 million in an account for construction costs, which was provided by an investor that has a pending lawsuit filed in December against Medical District Developments, Rieber Developments and BridgeInvest.
Medical District Developments allegedly defaulted on the second forbearance agreement by failing to pay the principal and interest owed on the loan by a Dec. 31, 2023 maturity date, the lawsuit states. Last month, Dorin’s affiliate bought the mortgage from BridgeInvest.