Genting Group’s Resorts World secured a $500 million refinance for part of its downtown Miami portfolio, near the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.
Property records show Wells Fargo is the mortgagee for the financing to Resorts World Omni for the properties that include the mixed-use Omni Center in the Arts & Entertainment District, anchored by the Hilton Miami Downtown at 1601 Biscayne Boulevard.
Wells Fargo isn’t the lender, but it is representing a group of lenders, according to the mortgage.
The 21-story Hilton has 527 rooms, conference space, a pool deck and fitness center. It was built in the late 1970s. The Omni mall has been permanently closed since 2000.
A Genting affiliate acquired the property via foreclosure in 2011 for $180 million.
The conglomerate has long pushed to get a casino license in downtown Miami.
The new debt comes three years after Genting, the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based gambling operator, planned to sell more than half of its area holdings to a group led by developer David Martin of Terra for $1.2 billion. The deal, which fell apart that year, included the Miami Herald’s former 14.6-acre waterfront headquarters site. Genting acquired the latter for a then-record price of $236 million in 2011.
Genting’s strategy, even when it involved selling 15.5 acres off, has been to hold onto the Hilton hotel and Omni Center. Last year, it sold a 0.8-acre assemblage at 1515 and 1525 Northeast Miami Place, 75 Northeast 15th Street, and 1502, 1512 and 1516 Northeast First Avenue in Miami to a partnership led by an Opportunity Zone fund for $20.9 million. The fund planned a Live Local Act apartment tower.
Banks have retreated from lending on a large scale, and developers have instead tapped alternate lenders for financing. That’s increasingly true as interest rates rise this year. But lending is still occurring.
Developers across South Florida closed on more than half a billion dollars worth of debt in recent months. That includes New York-based Torchlight Investors providing a $238 million refinancing of a Doral multifamily building owned by New York-based JSB. In another large deal, Fuse Group and KREA Developments picked up a $127 million loan from New York-based Madison Realty Capital for a 502-unit Fort Lauderdale multifamily development known as The Arcadian.
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