Jorge Ramos Blue Lagoon Closing Fight Reaches the Court

The winning $50 million bidder on the entitled Blue Lagoon site near Miami International Airport is reportedly balking at closing, and the bankruptcy docket shows why the deal has stalled: the sale is now tangled in an appeal fight, and the debtor had to ask a judge to force it forward.

Why it matters

Jorge Ramos beat a $23.9 million backup bid on August 19 to win the 6.9-acre South Florida parcel, but the court record for 7 At Blue Lagoon (1), LLC shows the path to closing has not been clean. Judge Robert Mark confirmed the Chapter 11 plan on August 25. Two days later, two separate notices of appeal hit the docket, and by August 28 the case had been assigned a companion number in district court along with a stay-pending-appeal filing. That is the kind of procedural cloud, not a wired financing package, that a paid depositor has to weigh before sending funds to a closing table.

The numbers

The docket then shows the debtor moving to force the issue. On August 31, a motion combining requests to compel and enforce was filed. The court granted it the next day, September 1, entering an order compelling and enforcing the sale. On September 2, the same day the closing was described publicly as stalled, the court entered a separate ruling on the pending stay request. Three motions, three rulings, inside six days, is not the pace of a deal moving on schedule.

What’s next

The docket does not yet show a recorded closing, a deed, or a further extension of the closing deadline, and it does not identify who is seeking the stay or why the plan is being appealed. Those filings are the next things to watch: whether the September 2 stay ruling clears the way for funds to move, or gives an appellant more time to keep Ramos from closing on a site the market has already repriced twice this year. We will update as the docket does.