$110 Construction Loan Spurs Condo-Hotel Project

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL-Shortly after the developer began foundation work on Q Club Resort & Residences, a 24-story, luxury condominium-hotel planned for here, it has obtained a $110-million construction loan.Q Club, which will include 333 units, is being developed on nearly two acres, an entire city block, at 505 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd. Plans also call for the project to have 12,000 sf of ground-floor retail space.Managing director Robert Kaplan along with senior analyst Mark Rutherford of the Miami office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP arranged the financing on behalf of developer Costa Dorada Associates Ltd., owned by Miami-based developer Jose Luis Zapata. The loan consists of a three-year, adjustable-rate financing through Hypo Real Estate Capital Corp. Holliday Fenoglio Fowler also arranged a land and predevelopment loan for the project late last year.Costa Dorada Associates began foundation work a few weeks ago, according to Holliday Fenoglio Fowler. “The developer began foundation work out of pocket, confident that he would” obtain the construction loan, Kaplan tells GlobeSt.com. The loan went through, even though the developer was requesting a loan that is unusual for a condo-hotel project, he says.”This assignment was challenging because our client requested a high-leverage, non-recourse construction financing on this condo-hotel project,” Kaplan says in a statement. “Lenders typically tend to provide only low-leverage and full-recourse loans for new, somewhat untested real estate types, such as condo-hotels.”Although non-recourse loans rely on the success of the project, Kaplan says the lender was confident in it. “It was the strength and integrity of the borrower, the team he assembled to pull this off,” he says. The team includes project managers Jim Lawson and Michael Kelleher of Regroup Development; in-house salesperson Rosalia Picot; and Ralph Bekkevold and Juan Loumiet of the Miami office of the law firm Greenburg Traurig. Locally based Stiles Corp. is the project’s general contractor.”Sales have been very strong, averaging $625 a sf, and they’re two-thirds of the way sold,” Kaplan says. In addition, “They were successful in hooking Hilton as a flag,” he says. Although Hilton has a Doubletree hotel on the beach, this is the first Hilton planned for Fort Lauderdale Beach.”The whole package made the lender comfortable that it could offer terms competitive with recourse lenders,” Kaplan says. He could not disclose those terms.The Q Club units, which will have ocean views, will consist of suites, studios, and one-, two- and three-bedroom units averaging 767 sf. Amenities will include a restaurant/café, a heated pool, a pool bar, a spa, a fitness center and two meeting rooms. In addition, the property will have 433 parking spaces.