Top NYC commercial loans recorded in October 2019
By Adam Pincus
1) The Chinese conglomerate Fosun International’s $1.1 billion loan at 28 Liberty Street was the first new loan greater than $125 million in New York City that Deutsche Bank had recorded in more than three months, an unusual lull. Insiders cited the lack of high-value construction and repositioning projects for the bank slowdown, not the firm’s announced layoffs and restructuring. The German lender shared the debt at the Lower Manhattan building with HSBC, in a deal arranged by CBRE’s James Millon, Tom Traynor and Ethan Gottlieb. This was not the bank’s only large deal in October. Deutsche Bank also provided financing for the 10th largest deal this month, given to Metro Loft Management.
2) L+M Development Partners and Invesco Real Estate hired Cushman & Wakefield to line up the financing for a 2,800-unit package of rent-subsidized apartments in Upper Manhattan, once known as the Putnam Portfolio. The $823.5 million loan was provided by Wells Fargo, which assigned it to Fannie Mae. That’s similar to the previous financing on the buildings. The debt had been arranged by Wells Fargo and then assigned to Freddie Mac.
3) Milstein Properties borrowed $749 million from Brookfield Real Estate Finance Fund for it’s office building at 335 Madison Avenue near Grand Central. The deal was arranged by AKS Capital Partners’ Aaron Appel, Jonathan Schwartz, Keith Kurland, Adam Schwartz and Michael Diaz. Brookfield in a 2017 prospectus for the fund said the fund planned to hold on to the mezzanine portion of a loan and sell the senior debt, which in this case was $650 million, which Citigroup and Morgan Stanley purchased. The prior debt had been provided by the Bank of China. This was the Brookfield fund’s second loan in two months. The prior loan was for $100 million in senior debt provided to Somerset Partners and Meadow Partners for a Midtown East office building.
4) Vornado Realty Trust obtained a loan from JPMorgan Chase Bank totaling $575 million for 2 Penn Plaza, the 1.6 million square foot office tower above Penn Station. The loan was at the same debt level as the loan issued by HSBC in 2014. The building is expected to be rehabilitated along with 1 Penn Plaza into a 4.4 million square foot complex.
5) Extell Development obtained a $515.5 million condo inventory loan (which has a maximum value of $535.5 million) from Blackstone Group for One Manhattan Square in the Lower East Side. Blackstone has lent to several projects this year, including $57 million for the the 31-unit residential project H.I.G. Realty Partners is developing at 1 Beekman Street; and $540 million provided for the repositioning of Deerfield’s redevelopment of 251 Park Avenue South. Blackstone is lending in partnership with LoanCore.