{"id":12992,"date":"2025-10-20T22:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/12992\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T22:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:06:07","slug":"florida-supreme-court-rejects-biscayne-21-buyout-appeal-burying-hope-for-termination-clarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/12992\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Supreme Court Rejects Biscayne 21 Buyout Appeal, Burying Hope For Termination Clarity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court of Florida shot down Two Roads Development<\/a>\u2019s appeal in a closely watched case involving the buyout of\u00a0a 61-year-old\u00a0condo\u00a0tower in Edgewater.<\/p>\n

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\n A group of 10 owners have sued to block the demolition of the Biscayne 21 condo tower in Edgewater after Two Roads Development acquired most of the property’s units.\n <\/p>\n

The state court denied the developer\u2019s petition for review on Tuesday, cutting off its last legal remedy to\u00a0revive\u00a0its plans to build luxury condo towers to replace the Biscayne 21 building,\u00a0Miami Condo Investments reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two Roads managing partner Taylor Collins declined to comment on the ruling but said in a text message exchange with Bisnow that the firm is \u201cfocusing on next steps.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The developer purchased the majority of units at Biscayne 21 at 2121 North Bayshore Drive in 2022 for $150M and later launched sales for\u00a0a planned three-tower, 55-story luxury condo project branded by Marriott International<\/a>\u2019s Edition.<\/p>\n

After taking control of the building and terminating the condo association, Two Roads moved to pave the way for demolition on the Edgewater site.<\/p>\n

But in 2023, 10 residents of the 13-story, 192-unit condo tower filed a suit to block the demolition<\/a>\u00a0and accused Two Roads of illegally lowering the required approval threshold from 100% to 80% for a condo termination.<\/p>\n

Two Roads landed a brief victory when a lower court allowed\u00a0it to proceed with the buyout, but the Third District Court of Appeal found fault in the decision in March 2024 and\u00a0slapped the developer with a temporary injunction\u00a0\u2014\u00a0ruling that the developer couldn’t terminate without the consent of every resident.<\/p>\n

It took the Third District Court of Appeal more than a year to double down on the ruling and side with the holdout owners in July, denying Two Roads\u2019 request for a rehearing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it remains to be seen if our clients can move back in their homes based on the condition of the building after being vacant for two years, we look forward to proceeding with our claims and recovering the significant damages our clients deserve,\u201d Armstrong Teasdale attorney Jeffrey Lam, who represents the holdout owners in the case alongside Glen Waldman, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear what the next steps for the building are, but the ruling could\u00a0force Two Roads to pursue a larger buyout offer to the holdouts rather than treat the nine-figure sum it has spent thus far as a sunk cost.<\/p>\n

Developers had hoped a ruling in Two Roads’ favor would grant more certainty in the process of\u00a0condo association terminations for\u00a0those looking to replace aging buildings with new construction.<\/p>\n

With the state’s highest court siding with holdout owners, the case has left many hesitant to pursue condo terminations due to unclear legal standards over approval thresholds and litigation fears<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amid a backdrop of widespread financial pressures<\/a>\u00a0for owners of\u00a0older buildings, driven by new state laws mandating recertification and reserve funding, many hoped this year’s legislative session would carve out a clearer path to forced termination and demolition of condo associations and their buildings.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/a> signed\u00a0a slimmed-down\u00a0condo safety law update this year\u00a0without addressing those concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bilzin Sumberg<\/a>\u00a0real estate attorney Joseph Hernandez<\/a>\u00a0said he was surprised by the Supreme Court\u2019s decision and added that next year’s legislature is one of the only paths to draft a solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it\u2019s almost impossible to unwind this,\u201d Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

With an incoming Dec. 31 deadline to fully fund reserves and\u00a0condo owners increasingly turning to developers asking for buyouts<\/a>, Hernandez said he expects\u00a0condo buildings will fall into distress as developers keep their distance due to not being able to navigate the legalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always said I\u2019m not in the gambling business, I\u2019m in the real estate business,\u201d BH Group<\/a>\u00a0founder and CEO Isaac Toledano<\/a> said in a statement over email.<\/p>\n

\u201cCondo terminations aren\u2019t quick flips,”\u00a0he added. \u201cThey\u2019re complex, time-consuming processes that demand patience, capital and consensus to succeed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court of Florida shot down Two Roads Development\u2019s appeal in a closely watched case involving the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11692,11690,11693,123,125,124,11691],"class_list":["post-12992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-bh-group","tag-bilzin-sumberg","tag-biscayne-21","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-two-roads-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}