Trump Facing Foreclosure in Fla

AOL Reports: We recently looked at Donald Trump's troubles south of the border but he's not doing so well in South Florida either. The Sun-Sentinel has a piece taking a look at Trump's projects in the area and the news isn't good. The Trump International Hotel & Tower Fort Lauderdale beach is facing foreclosure. The South Florida Business Journal reported that the condo-hotel project was hit with a foreclosure action last week. The 298-unit project has already been hit with lawsuits from buyers seeking refunds. Like the Baja project we mentioned last week this is another of Trump's licensing deals and some buyers have said they were misled about Trump's role in the project. Corus Construction Venture filed a foreclosure action March 11 against developer SB Hotel Associates over a $139 million mortgage issued in 2006 by Corus Bank, which failed in 2009. We heard about Corus Construction Venture in January when we learned that one of Phoenix's tallest towers, 44 Monroe is facing a trustee's sale in April and owes Corus Construction Venture $86.8 million. Last year Corus Bank collapsed and was taken over by the FDIC. It owns a 60 percent stake in Corus Construction Venture and the rest is owned by private equity consortium led by Starwood Capital Group an investment firm run by Barry Sternlicht, the founder of Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Construction started on the Fort Lauderdale project in 2005. The lavish project was designed by architect Michael Graves and was to include a health club, spa, restaurant and more. It was scheduled to open last year. Corus Construction will have the option of either holding onto the project until the market is better or possibly trying to make more immediate money by converting it into a regular hotel and buying out the existing condo unit owners. Another project in Fort Lauderdale, the 95-unit Trump Las Olas which we wrote about in 2006 never even got off the ground. The only Trump project thriving in South Florida is the Trump Hollywood in Hollywood, Florida. The project opened last year and the 41-story tower includes 200 condos at prices starting at $1.3 million.