Jeff Soffer’s Fontainebleau Development Nabs $412M Refi for Turnberry Resort
By Julia Echikson August 9, 2022 6:11 pm
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Jeffrey Soffer’s Fontainebleau Development nabbed a $412.3 million loan to refinance the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort in Aventura, Fla., property records show.
The loan will replace a $339 million loan previously on the property, and add an additional $72.7 million from the Bank of China (BACHF)’s New York branch, for a total of $412.3 million, according to mortgage records. Newmark‘s Dustin Stolly and Jordan Roeschlaub negotiated the debt.
The resort holds 353 hotel rooms, a spa, a water park and two 18-hole golf courses, one of which was originally designed by Robert Trent Jones. A nightly stay for this December, usually the busiest time for a Florida hotel, costs as much as $7,000.
The property, at 19999 W Country Club Drive, sits just east of the Aventura Mall, which Jeff Soffer’s father Donald Soffer developed and is now owned by his sister Jackie Soffer.
Bank of China, whose roots date back to 1912 when imperial China fell, is a state-owned commercial bank headquartered in Beijing. The financing is fairly rare coming from a Chinese institution, which used to be much more active in the lending scene in the U.S.
It also comes as tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments heat up, most recently boiling over during the visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. It also comes as the Chinese real estate market struggles.
Home prices in China have dropped for the first time in years in the wake of last year’s default of Evergrande, one of the country’s largest developers. Protests among angry homeowners, threatening to skip mortgage payments for unfinished properties, have percolated across the county.
Representatives for Fontainebleau Development and the Bank of China did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com.
