Banyan Street Capital’s Rudy Prio Tourzet is allegedly on the hook for $3.6 million tied to a distressed office property in Maryland.
In a recent lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court, Ladder Capital alleges Touzet signed as a guarantor on a delinquent $38.5 million loan secured by an office building in Rockville, Maryland that Miami-based Banyan Street co-owned with Connecticut-based Building and Land Technology and New York-based Green Hollow Capital Partners.
Tourzet and Ladder Capital’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.
The joint venture’s entity that owned the 14-story office building allegedly defaulted on the loan by failing to repay the mortgage on a Jan. 6 maturity date. The online court docket for a foreclosure case in Maryland’s Montgomery County shows the 1.2-acre property was sold at an auction on April 28. Information on the sale price and the buyer is not listed.
As guarantor of the loan, Tourzet agreed to pay a portion of the debt, up to $4.7 million, if the mortgage went into default, Ladder Capital’s March 13 complaint alleges. But Ladder Capital is only seeking $3.6 million, plus an additional $214,000 from Tourzet, which represents the amount the lender paid a contractor to resolve a lien on the Rockville, Maryland office building.
Banyan Street and its partners obtained the loan in 2021 when the joint venture acquired the office building, published reports state.
Founded by Touzet, Banyan Street owns a commercial real estate portfolio spanning 12 million square feet and valued at $3 billion in Florida and the U.S. East Coast, according to the firm’s website. In South Florida, Banyan Street and Miami-based Independencia Asset Management own Weston Corporate Center, a two-building office complex in Weston. The joint venture paid $52.3 million for the 3.4-acre business campus in 2021. Ladder Capital recently provided a $51 million acquisition loan to Adam Neumann’s Miami-based Flow and Israeli real estate firm Canada Global for the joint venture’s $71.5 million purchase of a 16-acre former trailer park in El Portal.
