Prestige Companies Takes Back Its Own Dania Beach Apartments

Prestige Companies has taken back the apartment building it sold two years ago in Dania Beach, after the buyer defaulted rather than finish converting it to condos. The Miami Lakes developer, led by Marty Caparros Jr., and partner MV Real Estate Holdings reacquired Atlantica at 624 NE 2nd Street through a deed in lieu of foreclosure valued at $27.3 million, The Real Deal reported.

Why it matters

Prestige and MV built and owned Atlantica, a 124-unit garden-style community, before selling it to Aventura-based S2 Development for $36.7 million in 2024. S2’s plan was to convert the rentals to condos, but county records show it closed only six of the 124 units before the project stalled. Rather than push through a foreclosure sale, S2 handed the remaining 118 units back to Prestige and MV directly, a deed in lieu that let the original owner reclaim the asset without a public auction. It is a rare instance of a developer ending up back where it started, and a sign of how quickly a 2024-vintage condo conversion plan can unravel once sales don’t materialize.

The numbers

The deed-in-lieu transfer covers 118 of Atlantica’s 124 units and carries a recorded value of $27.3 million, or roughly $231,355 per unit. That is well below the $36.7 million S2 paid for the full 124-unit property in 2024, before it had sold any units off. CRE Lendco, the Hallandale Beach-based lending arm of Kawa Capital, had provided S2 with a $22.1 million mortgage on the purchase. The gap between S2’s six closed condo sales and the 118 units it handed back shows how far short the conversion fell of what it needed to service that debt.

What’s next

Prestige and MV now control Atlantica again, with 118 rental units to lease, sell, or re-market as a going concern rather than a stalled condo conversion. South Florida’s apartment-to-condo pipeline has produced a string of similar reversals as buyers who priced in strong for-sale demand find rentals easier to fill than units to sell. Whether Prestige returns the building to a straight rental hold or tries a second conversion attempt will be the next marker for a deal that, on paper, closed the same day it started.