Condo associations representing 565 unit owners at Turnberry Isle’s North and South towers have sued the City of Aventura and developer Jeffrey Soffer’s affiliate, accusing the city of quietly rewriting its own rules to clear the way for two new condo towers on the property’s tennis courts and spa. The federal complaint, filed in Miami, alleges the 29-story North and South towers’ owners were cut out of a required approval process before officials signed off on Soffer’s project.
The lawsuit, filed against the City of Aventura and Soffer affiliate YCM Acquisition LLC, was docketed August 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida as Case No. 1:26-cv-25303, brought under the federal civil rights statute 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, according to court records. As The Real Deal first reported, the associations claim Soffer put “unrelenting pressure” on the city to push the towers through. Soffer, who leads Fontainebleau Development, manages YCM Acquisition.
At the center of the dispute is a 2023 citywide ordinance that allowed underwater land to count toward a development site’s size when calculating density, a change the lawsuit says applied citywide but was actually aimed squarely at the Turnberry Isle parcel. The ordinance, the suit alleges, created more development density without creating any usable land and passed without a public hearing. Soffer’s condo project itself was later approved in 2025, also without a public hearing, according to the complaint.
Tennis Courts and Spa Targeted for New Towers
Soffer wants to build two condo towers with 264 units, plus parking and amenities, on the site of Turnberry Isle’s existing tennis courts and spa. The associations say the project has parking noncompliance along with setback and open-space shortfalls, and they’re asking a judge to declare that the project cannot proceed without their consent, while seeking to block the city from issuing any permits for it…