W South Beach sued over $378M loan

UPDATED, 5:52 p.m., Oct. 18: New York-based developer David Edelstein’s condo-hotel W South Beach has been slapped with a foreclosure suit that could strip it of its unsold units, the South Florida Business Journal reported.

A German government-owned lender Hypo Real Estate Capital Corp. sued last week is going after 216 units and the common areas at the 20-story hotel located at 2201 Collins Avenue. The bank loan was modified at $378 million in 2010, a year after W South Beach launched sales of its 408 units.

RFR Realty and TriStar Capital, both based in New York, run the limited-liability company 2201 Collins Fee LLC named in the suit.

“W South Beach is finalizing the refinancing of the remaining $60 million loan balance due to Hypo Bank of Germany for the initial loan,” said Edelstein, on behalf of W South Beach, in a statement. “Three-hundred-and-10-million dollars of that loan has been repaid to the lender as a direct result of the property’s successful residential sales and hotel operations.”

Last year, National Football League players DeAngelo Hall, Jammal Brown, Carnell Williams, along with former NFL player Keiwan Ratliff, sued 2201 Collins Fee. The lawsuits involve disputes over the players’ deposits on units at the property. Among the players’ claims was that W was not the developer of the project, but rather the hotel manager, as previously reported. [South Florida Business Journal] — Mark Maurer