Developer who hired Mayor Suarez has lost his company — and now may lose his $6M home

Nearly two years ago, developer Rishi Kapoor paid about $6 million for a five-bedroom, six-bath suburban estate with a pool and boat dock in the exclusive Cocoplum neighborhood of Coral Gables.

The high-end home purchase sent a clear signal that Kapoor, who as CEO of Location Ventures was developing a handful of luxury condo projects, had made it in Miami.

Or so it seemed.

In recent months, Kapoor has drawn the scrutiny of state and federal authorities probing his dealings at Location Ventures and his business relationship with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. Having already lost control of his development company this summer, Kapoor now faces the grim prospect of losing his 6,000-square-foot waterfront home at 7233 Los Pinos Blvd.

Kapoor, along with his wife, Jennie Frank, have been sued by private lender Robert Gutlohn, who loaned about $4.5 million to the couple for their Cocoplum purchase in November 2021. Gutlohn also happens to be one of the biggest lenders to Location Ventures’ projects in Miami, Miami Beach and Coral Gables and has sued to recover about $28 million in loans for those three deals — financing that was personally guaranteed by Kapoor.

Gutlohn’s company, Los Pinos Acquisition, sued Kapoor and his wife last week in a complaint seeking to foreclose on the couple’s home mortgage under the name 7233 Los Pinos, LLC, claiming that the Kapoors failed to keep up on their monthly payments through August and were therefore in “default” under the terms of a promissory note with 12.5% annual interest. In the foreclosure plan, Gutlohn’s company aims to recover a total of $4.65 million, including unpaid interest, by forcing the sale of the couple’s home in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

In the suit, Gutlohn’s lawyer, Jason Alderman, asserted that Kapoor’s profile as a borrower has changed dramatically, accusing him of committing “multiple frauds,” including misusing investors’ and lenders’ money in Location Ventures’ projects in South Florida. After Kapoor’s ouster as CEO in July, he was replaced by a former Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge, Alan Fine, who is tasked with liquidating some assets and preserving others for future development while trying to pay off creditors.

Alderman noted that when Kapoor applied for the home mortgage, he claimed to own certain assets, including automobiles, valued at more than $2.5 million, “when in fact such representations were false thereby materially changing the underwriting and security position of [Rishi] Kapoor as a guarantor,” according to the suit.

In the home foreclosure suit, Alderman also pointed out that Kapoor has sold his marina slip at the Cocoplum Yacht Club, which he and his wife had bought for $695,000 in January 2022. Property records show that the Kapoors, who are listed as the owners of the “Eleuthera” dock at 6500 Prado Blvd., sold the slip to his former development company’s lawyer, Brian Goodkind and his wife, this month.

“As of the date of this lawsuit, [Rishi] Kapoor recently was liquidating personal assets, including his dock,” Alderman noted in the home foreclosure suit.

Alderman declined to comment for this story.

Kapoor, who is believed to be living temporarily in the Bahamas, did not respond to phone and text messages.

Goodkind also declined to comment.

Over the past year, Kapoor has been hit with more than 10 lawsuits by investors, lenders and contractors, including Gutlohn, who has decades of experience in the real estate and lending business. Gutlohn has not only sued the Kapoors over the couple’s failure to pay the mortgage on their Cocoplum home, but he’s also turned to the courts to recover $28 million in unpaid loans from three Location Ventures’ projects on Stewart Avenue in Miami, Washington Avenue in Miami Beach and Minorca Avenue in Coral Gables, records show.

Meanwhile, two of the biggest investors in Kapoor’s former company and its development plans have sued him, claiming he owes them $25 million under a contract agreement, sealed at the end of last year, to buy out their interests in two Location Ventures’ condo projects on Ponce de Leon in Coral Gables and Bayshore Drive in Fort Lauderdale. That lawsuit claims Kapoor failed to pay the two investors, Alex Kleyner, and Diana Ulis, as promised.

During this same time frame, the Miami Herald reported in May, corporate and public records show Location Ventures was paying Suarez $10,000 a month as a consultant for its mixed-use developments under the URBIN name. In the wake of some of those payments, the Miami mayor’s office helped Kapoor cut through red tape at City Hall to obtain permits for an URBIN development in Coconut Grove. Suarez denied using his office to help Kapoor’s residential and retail project at Commodore Plaza.

In total, Suarez was paid at least $170,000 as a consultant on Kapoor’s URBIN projects in Miami, Miami Beach and Coral Gables between September 2021 and March 2023, according to Location Ventures’ corporate records reviewed by the Herald. Suarez said he was paid by Kapoor to attract private-equity investors.

The first clue of the Kapoor-Suarez business relationship surfaced in a lawsuit filed in May by Greg Brooks, who worked as the chief financial officer at Location Ventures from August 2022 to March 2023. Brooks was fired by Kapoor after he raised various concerns about alleged “financial improprieties” involving the CEO’s handling of his company’s funds.

Among many allegations of “impropriety” lodged against Kapoor, Brooks’ lawsuit highlighted the $10,000 monthly payments to the mayor “for unknown services.” Brooks also accused Kapoor of using development funds to pay for his nearly $6 million Coral Gables waterfront home in Cocoplum, a $10,000-a-month private chef to cook on his yacht and a McLaren sports car, without reporting the income to the IRS.

Since Brooks’ now-settled suit was filed, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI have opened parallel civil and criminal investigations into Kapoor’s business practices and consulting deal with Suarez, the Miami Herald has reported.