Lynd, Declaration, Brian Tuttle Nab $133M Refi for Rentals

Lynd and its partners scored a $132.5 million refinancing for their newly finished 401-unit apartment complex at Royal Palm Beach’s Tuttle Royale mixed-use development.

The San Antonio, Texas-based firm this year completed Villas at Tuttle Royale with 26 three-story buildings and 55 townhomes for rent at 11200 Nicole Drive, according to a Lynd news release. The complex includes detached garages and carports, as well as two-car garages for the townhomes.

New York-based Declaration Partners and Hillsboro Beach-based Tuttle Land Investments, led by Brian Tuttle, were equity investors in the development and remain project partners, Lynd CEO David Lynd said.

MF1 Capital provided the loan, which refinances the project’s $126 million construction loan secured in 2023 and raises it by $6.5 million, records show. New York-based S3 Capital was the construction financing lender, with Declaration also providing preferred equity.

Villas at Tuttle Royale is 40 percent leased, Lynd said. It offers one- to four-bedroom apartments, with monthly rents ranging from $2,120 to $4,489, according to its website.

The complex is part of the roughly 200-acre Tuttle Royale mixed-use development on the southwest corner of Southern Boulevard and U.S. 441. Tuttle, a longtime land assembler, is Tuttle Royale’s master developer, assembling the tract since 2013 and securing approvals for the entire project.

Over the years, he sold portions of Tuttle Royale. The Fanjul family’s FCI Residential is developing a 320-unit apartment complex at Tuttle Royale. Also, the Pérez family’s Related Group completed the 392-unit The Point at Southern Boulevard apartment complex at Tuttle Royale in 2019. It sold the complex to Pantzer Properties for $119.4 million in 2021.

For his part, Tuttle had previously said that building portions of Tuttle Royale would mark his debut as a developer. But recently, he sold one of the sites and faces financial woes on the other property.

In November, K. Hovnanian Homes paid $19 million for the parcels where Tuttle had wanted to develop 100 single-family homes. The true price is closer to $23 million, including payouts Tuttle will receive from the sale of each completed home and offsite improvements, Tuttle said.

In July, a lender sued Tuttle and his affiliates alleging a default on $38.4 million in loans for Main Street, planned for 750,000 square feet of retail; a 150-key hotel; 400-unit apartment complex and garages. In December, Tuttle said he had signed an equity partner to help build Main Street and resolve the foreclosure lawsuit. The case is still open, court records show.

Completion of Villas at Tuttle Royale comes as South Florida faces a multifamily supply overhang. Developers completed a record 18,600 apartments in the tri-county region last year, outpacing 15,000 new leases signed, according to CoStar Group. This has led to slower lease-ups and concessions at some complexes.

Demand is expected to catch up to supply this year due to a drop in construction starts. Yet, data shows a slowdown of the influx of out-of-staters, which could lead to a longer lasting supply overhang.

Multifamily refinancings continue to flow in South Florida. Last month, Cymbal DLT scored a $114 million refinancing for the 341-unit Laguna Gardens apartment complex, which is a Live Local Act development at 20775 Northwest 17th Avenue in Miami Gardens. That came on the heels of David Martin’s Terra landing a $291 million refinancing for a 470-unit apartment complex and the adjacent renovated Centro City Plaza in Miami. The projects mark the first phase of Terra’s Centro City mixed-use development on the northwest corner of Northwest Seventh Street and Northwest 37th Avenue near the Little Havana neighborhood.