Safehold borrows $135M from John Hancock for fee under Grand Central office building

Safehold Inc., an iStar-managed REIT, through the entity 685 Third Avenue Ground Owner LLC as borrower signed a loan agreement with lender John Hancock Life Insurance Company valued at $134.8 million for the fee interest in the ground-leased office building at 685 3rd Avenue in Grand Central. The deal closed on March 9, 2020 and was recorded on March 11, 2020.
The property contains a total of 559,755 square feet of built space.
The average loan per buildable square foot is $241.
This loan represents a 75 percent loan to value given the $180 million valuation for the fee that Safehold gave at the time of the purchase. The last time the property sold was December 20, 2019, when Safehold acquired the entire building for $451,250,000. Safehold then signed a ground lease valued at $271.3 million with ground tenant BentallGreenOak.
The DOB issued a major alteration (A1) initial temporary certificate of occupancy for the building on May 7, 2013.
Over the past five years, there have been 75 NYC Department of Buildings permit applications filed for this parcel valued at more than $20,000. There were 75 renovation/alteration projects (A2) applied for with a total estimated value of $35,273,033.
Direct link to Acris document. link
Direct link to the city’s interactive property map, ZOLA. link