this another breh in the midwest that is balling like this but i don't recall his name at the moment.
Roy Donahue “Don” Peebles (born March 2, 1960) is a real estate entrepreneur, author and political activist. Peebles is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Peebles Corporation,
[1] the largest African-American real-estate development and ownership company in the US, with a multi-billion dollar development portfolio of luxury hotels, high-rise residential and commercial properties in
New York City,
Washington, D.C.,
Philadelphia,
Las Vegas and
Miami Beach.
[2] Peebles' company has previously owned property near
San Francisco in
California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Donahue_Peebles
Unreal Estate
The Royal Palm, Miami Beach's First Black-Owned Hotel, to Become Yet Another Fancy Chain Hotel
By
Kyle Munzenrieder Mon., Apr. 11 2011 at 12:59 PM
4
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The Royal Palm hotel was the first black-owned hotel in all of Miami Beach, and as our Francisco Alvarado once put it, "was supposed to be a beacon of atonement for Miami-Dade County's racist past." After it re-opened on 16th and Collins in 2002, a string of bad business calculations and bitter disagreements plagued the project and it ended up on the auction block last year. Now The Wall Street Journal reports that the luxury-boutique brand of James Hotels is moving in. Yay! Just what Miami Beach needs, more luxury boutique hotel chains with names imported from other cities!
The hotel will be renamed The James Royal Palm and will join the likes of the Gansevoort, W, Mondrian, soon-to-open Dream, and a string of other relatively recent entries into the Miami Beach hotel scene with names, brands and chains that started elsewhere.
The James already has outpost in Chicago and New York, and according to The Wall Street Journal will bring another to Miami.[James owners KSL Capital Partners LLC.] bought Royal Palm last month from Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. for $130 million, with Sunstone providing seller financing of $90 million. Sunstone had purchased the hotel last August at a bankruptcy auction for $126 million, but the real-estate-investment trust later shuffled its top management and decided that the Royal Palm didn't fit its strategy.
...
KSL and Denihan plan for the Royal Palm's renovation to overhaul the hotel's rooms under the guidance of interior designer Lauren Rottet. The project also will add a spa and children's center, among other amenities. Though, The James chain is known for featuring the work of local artists in its hotels, which should a distinctively Miami-feel. Assuming they don't commission Britto for anything, it should be a welcome change. The hotel will open next year after a $42 million makeover.
It's still a far cry from the original intent of the rebuilt Royal Palm. Miami Beach used to forbid African-Americans on the island without work permits, and as recently as 1989 city leaders snubbed Nelson Mandela when he visited. The Royal Palm was supposed to ease some of the historic racial tension by introducing the first black-owned hotel on an island where blacks formerly couldn't own property. Though, as we detailed last year, that plan never quite found success.
This Royal Palm is not to be confused with another historic hotel of the same name: Henry Flagler's Royal Palm on Biscayne Bay that was built in the late 1800s and was one of the first hotels in Miami.
- Banana Republican
Black-Owned Miami Beach Hotel Goes Belly Up
By Francisco Alvarado Mon., Apr. 12 2010 at 9:00 AM
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The Royal Palm Hotel will be sold in a public auction in May.
The Royal Palm Hotel on 16th Street and Collins Avenue was supposed to be a beacon of atonement for Miami-Dade County's racist past.
In 1989, county officials snubbed South African leader Nelson Mandela when he visited Miami. African Americans across the country boycotted Miami-Dade, costing the area tens of millions in lost tourism dollars. So Miami Beach came up with a plan in 1993 to loan $10 million to a black developer to build the city's first black-owned convention center hotel and provide management opportunities for blacks in the hospitality industry. In 1995, Miami Beach selected R. Donahue Peebles, a charismatic Washington D.C. developer who got his start doing deals with former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.
Fifteen years later, the Royal Palm is an albatross and its mission destroyed by hubris, lawsuits, and poor management. During the project's construction phase, Peebles bickered with the city over alleged defects in the building's structure. After the hotel opened in 2002, the developer refused to pay his rent until the city commission in 2004 renegotiated his deal to allow him to convert some of the Royal Palm rooms into condo-hotel units.
That allowed Peebles to sell the hotel's majority interest to investors Guy Mitchell and Robert Falor for $127 million in 2005. Peebles reportedly made a $48 million profit.
But the condo-hotel concept never took and the Royal Palm began missing loan payments. In 2007, Peebles -- who remained a minority owner -- sued Mitchell and Falor citing mismanagement. He won, and a circuit court judge gave Peebles management control over the Royal Palm. But it was too late.
South Florida Business Journal reported on April 1 that the hotel is set to be auctioned off on May 27 after its owner, Royal Palm Senior Investors LLC, lost a $142.7 million foreclosure judgment to Wachovia Bank and Credit Suisse First Boston. Peebles did not return Riptide's call requesting comment.
However, Marilyn Holifield, an attorney with Miami law firm Holland & Knight, which helped organize the black boycott, says the Royal Palm will always serve as "a monument to the boycott and the goodwill of our community."
Interesting concept 
