WSJ: Fontainebleau on the Verge of Defaulting On Huge Loan

It's been a tough summer for Miami Beach's most iconic hotel.

via Wikimedia Commons

​The global Arma-recession has grounded flocks of would-be vacationers at home in Hamburg and Milwaukee and Bogota.

A massive storm collapsed the roof at LIV.

And Ben Novack Jr., heir to the Fontainebleau fortune, got himself murdered in New York, keeping the hotel's name in the news for all the wrong reasons (unless you're trying to attract the amputee porn crowd.)

Now comes a report in this morning's Wall Street Journal that the current owner, the Soffer family, is close to defaulting on a $690 million construction loan from Bank of America.

The Soffers took out the loan to pay for the massive rennovation that debuted earlier this year. Although they haven't missed a debt payment yet, the Journal reports that BoA might declare a default over a number of other problems, including a failure to keep enough cash on hand to pay out $60 million in contested fees to construction companies.

The Soffers already watched their Fontainebleau project in Las Vegas spiral into bankruptcy earlier this year.

The story isn't without some good news, though. The hotel usually tops 70 percent occupancy, the Journal reports, which trounces the rest of Miami's struggling hotel market.

Even better for the Soffers, the Wall Street Journal never even mentions the name "Ben Novack Jr."