The 52-acre former Palm Beach Jai Alai fronton owned by boxing promoter Don King is scheduled for a foreclosure auction on May 18, with housing developers among the parties tracking the Mangonia Park property and King’s legal team continuing to seek a resolution.
The site, located at 1415 45th Street, has sat vacant for more than three decades. King, 93, purchased the property in 1999 for $6.3 million, according to property records cited by The Real Deal. The fronton itself, a 282,800-square-foot structure built in 1973, closed in December 1994 after Florida’s expanded gambling options and a prolonged jai alai players’ strike eroded the sport’s commercial base.
How the Auction Came About
Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Scott Kerner entered a $42.5 million judgment in favor of an affiliate of Taylor Made Lending, a Pompano Beach-based hard money lender, paving the way for the May 18 sale. Taylor Made serves as the special servicer for a consortium of investors that hold the mortgages, including Miami-based Winston Capital Management.
According to court filings, King personally guaranteed three loans secured by the property. The first, taken out in 2023, was for $22.3 million at a 13.9 percent annual interest rate, requiring monthly interest-only payments of $260,000. A second $9 million loan followed in 2024 at 18.5 percent annual interest, along with a third loan for $800,000 at 2 percent. Taylor Made alleged in its complaint that King stopped making the $138,750 monthly interest-only payments on the $9 million loan in September and failed to repay the $800,000 loan when it matured in December.
The Site and Its Constraints
The property is primarily zoned for office, governmental, medical outpatient, educational and manufacturing uses, with up to 25 percent available for retail uses such as pharmacies, restaurants and gyms, according to the offering memorandum prepared by listing broker Art Porosoff of the Miami-based Porosoff Group.
Development plans face an infrastructure hurdle independent of the foreclosure. Mangonia Park Town Manager Ken Metcalf told The Palm Beach Post in a March 31 interview that nothing can be built on the 53-acre parcel until the town secures a new, larger water storage tank for clean drinking water. A mixed-use redevelopment featuring thousands of new homes has been floated by developers tracking the site.
A Pattern of Distressed Holdings
The foreclosure is part of a broader run of real estate troubles for King. In July, an affiliate of Boca Raton-based construction firm Straticon paid $11 million for a King-owned warehouse in Deerfield Beach that had previously served as the boxing promoter’s headquarters. That warehouse had been the subject of a separate foreclosure action filed by an affiliate of Miami-based Blueprint Capital Partners over an alleged default on a $5.3 million loan.
King and Taylor Made Lending’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment from The Real Deal, which first reported the foreclosure auction date.
Earlier Sale Attempts
King has tried to sell the Mangonia Park property multiple times since acquiring it. His wife, Henrietta King, bought the fronton in 1999 with plans for a sports complex that never materialized. In the early 2000s, a proposed sale to a Boca Raton developer for housing collapsed, leading to the lengthy DK Arena v. EB Acquisitions litigation that ultimately ran through the Florida Supreme Court. A decade ago, a separate deal with West Palm Beach-based FRI Investors also fell apart.
The property was relisted in April 2025 without a stated asking price, though sources told The Real Deal that King’s team was seeking offers in the $100 million range, or roughly $2 million per acre.
