South Florida firm set to buy 5-hotel portfolio for $87M

A South Florida firm appears to be getting ready to buy a five-hotel property portfolio for a rumored $87 million from troubled Orlando businessman Nikesh A. Patel.

Coral Gables-based Continental Properties Acquisition Corp. reportedly is scheduled to close on the purchase of Patel’s Alena Hospitality portfolio in May, real estate sources said. Continental Properties last fall had signed a letter of intent to buy the portfolio from Patel, who has been facing charges of loan fraud since being arrested…

In NCAA tournament, money talks

Each March, the NCAA Tournament is inevitably the site of exciting upsets and Cinderella runs by surprise teams. While those story lines grab most of the headlines during the three weeks of basketball nirvana, millions of dollars per team are spent throughout the season to reach the pinnacle of college basketball success.

The national title winner in three out of five of the college basketball seasons since 2010 has been either the first, second or third biggest spender in men’s college basketball,…

Why Tavistock is suing a Philadelphia developer, plus more Monday headlines

Looks like the age-old question of what’s in a name is likely to be decided in court.

Tavistock Development-affiliated company Lake Nona Property Holdings is suing a Philadelphia developer over the use of the “Lake Nona” name, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

At issue is whether a geographic area can be trademarked as a name for development. Lake Nona Property Holdings alleges that Philadelphia-based The Klein Co.’s Dwell at Lake Nona project violates the Lake Nona trademark.

Read more from the Orlando…

White Flint Mall owners push to speed up Lord & Taylor lawsuit

The owners of White Flint Mall want Lord & Taylor to have its day in court over financial damages as soon as possible now that an appellate court has found the mall’s redevelopment into a town center can move forward.

Lawyers for the former Montgomery County mall filed a motion with federal court in Greenbelt Thursday arguing Lord & Taylor’s lawsuit has delayed the project for nearly two years and made it impossible to land the financing or tenants it needs to advance the redevelopment. But Lord…

3 things that sweeten the deal for a potential Darden HQ buyer

Darden Restaurants Inc. has put its 465,000-square-foot headquarters office on the market and there are a few things that make this a really good deal.

The Orlando-based restaurant firm (NYSE: DRI), which has about 1,000 employees working in the building in southwest Orlando, on March 13 announced it is exploring a sale-leaseback agreement and has hired Eastdil Secured LLC to market the Restaurant Support Center on John Young Parkway and Taft-Vineland Road on its behalf.

Darden said it seeks to…