JV Buys Fort Lauderdale Site for $27M

FORT LAUDERDALE-On April 23rd, the Coral Gables, FL Office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, L.P. announced that developer Jorge Perez of the Related Group and an unnamed foreign investor had formed a joint venture with a partnership made up of Fortune International Realty, a Miami-based real estate company, and the family which owned a 1950s-era resort hotel on Fort Lauderdale beach. Perez and the foreign investor paid Fortune International and the Ireland family/Fairwinds Group, $27.1 million for the 4.6-acre parcel on Ft. Lauderdale Beach.

HFF marketed the oceanfront site on behalf of Fortune International and the Ireland family/Fairwinds–which have retained a partnership interest in the new venture and will be involved in the eventual development of the site–pursuant to an agreement with an existing lender.

In 2008, the partnership which owned the site, located about four miles northeast of downtown Fort Lauderdale, got tentative approval to develop Fairwinds on the Ocean, a five-star complex with an 165-room hotel and 128 condominiums. In 2006, the partnership had reportedly been negotiating with the Ritz Carlton and the Mandarin Oriental.