Windmoor JV Returns Condo to Lender

MIAMI-Another casualty of the condo bust in Miami came to light early this week, when a condominium developer turned over a new, 324-unit project to the lender, iStar Financial. Terrazas Riverpark Village developer, Windmoor Project, LLC with Miami developer Miguel Angel Barbagallo, as principal, signed a “special warranty deed in lieu of foreclosure” last September, but it was not recorded in Miami-Dade County until April 13th, 2010. Not one unit had been sold at the property.

Construction of the two-tower project, located in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood a short hop from downtown and close to where the new Florida Marlins baseball stadium is going up, was begun in April 2006, but stopped several times within the last four years, according to Condo Vultures, LLC, a Bal Harbour-based real estate consulting and brokerage firm. A fourth notice of commencement to finish the project was filed on January 28, 2010 in Miami-Dade County. The development had been scheduled to be completed in late 2007, according to an April 13, 2006 article in the South Florida Business Journal.

Condo projects not on the water, especially in Little Havana (the development is actually on the Miami River, but not on the ocean or Biscayne Bay), do not have the cache of units in more upscale locations, says Jack McCabe, CEO of McCabe Research and Consulting in Deerfield Beach.