Even top commercial properties are suffering from market crisis [South Florida]

Even top commercial properties are suffering from market crisis [South Florida]

Even top-tier properties are showing they’re vulnerable to turmoil in the residential real estate industry.

The owners of prime properties in Aventura and the West Brickell area of Miami are the latest to feel the financial pain.

Lehman Brothers Holdings is suing developer Shefaor/Tarragon to recover nearly $84 million it lent the partnership two years ago to build a high-rise condo on the site of a 285-unit rental complex. Today, the assessed value of the Aventura apartment property is $40 million, half what’s owed to the lender.

Further south, Miami investor J. Kevin Reilly and his company, Brickell Citicentre, didn’t wait for the lender to sue to take back land north of Southwest Eight Street along both sides of Miami Avenue. Brickell Citicentre two weeks ago handed over two vacant city blocks of prime developable space to New York-based iStar Financial, a publicly traded company that provides senior and mezzanine commercial loans.