Fortuna Realty Group signs $124M refi loan with Deutsche Bank for hotel in Grand Central

Fortuna Realty Group through the entity Hotel 39th LLC as borrower signed a refi loan with lender Deutsche Bank valued at $124 million for the hotel building (H2) at 30 West 39th Street in Grand Central, Manhattan.
The deal closed on July 25, 2023 and was recorded on August 10, 2023. The prior lender was Goldman Sachs which held debt that had an original loan amount of $116 million.
The property has 133,564 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $928 per the PincusCo analysis. (The price per square foot analysis is the transaction price divided by square feet as reported in public records and assumes no air rights have been sold.)
The owner bought the property on August 16, 2016, for $8 million. The signatory for Fortuna Realty Group was Morris Moinian and Morad Kalimian. The signatory for Deutsche Bank was Anthony Pontoriero and David Addison.

The property

The hotel building in Grand Central has 133,564 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 197 feet deep with a total lot size of 11,158 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-6 which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $36.4 million. The most recent loan totaled $116 million and was provided by Goldman Sachs on August 24, 2022.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $6,250 in ECB penalties and $11,300 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Grand Central, The majority, or 83 percent of the 43.5 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 8 percent of the space. In sales, Grand Central has 3.6 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $1.3 billion in sales volume in the last two years and is the 11th highest in Manhattan. For development, Grand Central has 2.6 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 12th highest in Manhattan. It had 2.7 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 6 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 11 of the 27 commercial properties representing 1,258,654 square feet of the 1,903,078 square feet. The largest owner is Weihong Hu, followed by R&B Realty Group and then Kalimian Equities.
On the tax block, there were two new building construction projects totaling 73,220 square feet. The largest is a 173-unit, 62,062 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Wei Hong Hu and filed by Wei Hong Hu with plans filed April 20, 2018 and permitted July 24, 2018. The second largest is a 299-unit, 11,158 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Alan Reich with plans filed December 30, 2016 and permitted January 4, 2019.

The majority, or 70 percent of the 1.9 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Fortuna Realty Group owned at least two commercial properties in New York City with 193,284 square feet and a city-determined market value of $58.8 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $219 million in debt, borrowed from Goldman Sachs and Prime Finance Partners. Within the portfolio, all identified are hotel properties. They are all located in Manhattan.

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