It Must Be Somebody's Fault: Margaritaville Times Square Faces Foreclosure Auction

Two years after providing a $57M loan to the Margaritaville Resort Times Square, Arden Group is looking for more than its lost shaker of salt — it's looking to force a sale of the property.

Arden Group, the mezzanine lender on the 170K SF hotel at 560 Seventh Ave., has initiated a UCC foreclosure on the Jimmy Buffett-branded resort, giving notice of a foreclosure auction set for July 10, The Real Deal reports. Sharif El-Gamal's Soho Properties led the joint venture that developed the property, which defaulted on its payments in March, an unnamed source told TRD.

Arden’s November 2021 loan helped refinance the construction debt on the hotel, which opened in the summer of that year at a challenging time for New York hotels. Soho Properties' partners in the 234-room, 32-story project — which features a rooftop outdoor swimming pool, a two-story rooftop bar and a 16K SF Margaritaville Restaurant — are Chip and Andrew Weiss and MHP Real Estate Services.  

As part of the deal to develop the property, El-Gamal promised to build a new synagogue for the Garment Center Congregation, but that group sued the developer, claiming he failed to deliver and had rendered it "homeless."

In September 2021, the property scored a $317M refinancing loan, which developers said was the biggest financing deal of the year. It is unclear if El-Gamal is still current on that debt.

Multiple hotel projects have been faced foreclosure and fallen into bankruptcy in New York in recent years. Last month, Quadrum Global closed on its $96M purchase of the Williamsburg Hotel after a bankruptcy trustee selected the UK-based firm as a buyer in January. 

In March, the Moon Hotel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Hospitality company Urban Commons filed for bankruptcy on its Battery Park City hotel, which had recently carried The Ritz-Carlton flag, last November.