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The partnership with New York real estate companies is reaching a tipping point for loan maturity
New York developers Aby Rosen and David Edelstein are locked in a midday standoff over a proposed buyout deal for the W South Beach — with an expiring loan raising the stakes.
Entities controlled by Edelstein, a director of Tricap (formerly Tristar Capital), and Rosen, a co-founder and director of RFR Realty, recently filed dueling lawsuits against each other in Miami-Dade Circuit Court and the New York Supreme Court.
The co-owners of the W South Beach are at a hostile standoff over Tricap’s $200 million proposal to buy RFR’s interest in the luxury hotel at 2201 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach.
A Tricap spokesman said Edelstein’s company filed legal action in Miami-Dade to “enforce a contractually agreed-upon process for the purchase or sale of the hotel between them” and that RFR followed up with its own complaint in New York, ” apparently seeking to avoid litigating the matter in Florida.”
Rosen and RFR attorney David Scharf did not respond to requests for comment.
Last week, the Tricap entity sued RFR’s Miami-Dade entity, seeking an injunction to enforce an agreement the partners reportedly reached in October. The lawsuit also seeks to require RFR to either agree to extend a $157.4 million Citibank mortgage that matures Jan. 25, or find its share of the funds to pay it off.
RFR has “repeatedly refused” to cooperate with Tricap on the loan issue as a tactic to obtain a more favorable buyout at an “inflated price,” the Miami-Dade lawsuit says. If Tricap refused, RFR threatened to “burn the house down,” the complaint also states.
On Monday, the RFR entity sued the Tricap entity in New York, accusing its partner of using the buyout negotiations as a stalling tactic to extend the maturity date of the loan, which was originally set to expire in August last year.
RFR claims it was “allegedly trading in good faith”, while Tricap was “simply trading [RFR] together in an effort to extract additional concessions,” the New York lawsuit states. Tricap pulled out of Tricap’s $200 million bid last month, RFR also claims.
In 2009, the New York companies jointly developed the 395-room W Hotel. Outside of Miami Beach, Edlestein’s Tricap operates in Wynwood, where the company has made a significant investment. In 2021, Tricap and partner RAL Development put down $13 million to complete a Wynwood joint where the consortium is planning a $200 million mixed-use project with 300,000 square feet of office space.
That same year, Tricap partnered with Related Group, Alex Karakhanian’s Lndmrk Development and Tricera Capital to purchase a 1.3-acre development site in Wynwood for $26.5 million for a residential project.
Rosen’s RFR has recently been bullish in downtown Miami. Last year, the company paid a combined $107 million for the 241-room Yve Hotel Miami and 100 Biscayne, a 30-story office tower.
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