Trans World Equities is new lender for $37M loan given to Lonicera Partners to buy Downtown Brooklyn site

Trans World Equities through the entity 100 Equities Associates, LLC bought a note with an original principal of $37 million from Investment Property Exchange Services secured by Lonicera Partners’s 290-unit development at 55 Willoughby Street in Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on July 28, 2022 and was recorded on August 11, 2022. The prior lender was Investment Property Exchange Services which held debt that had an original loan amount of $37 million.
Lonicera bought the property on December 31, 2021, for $48 million from Trans World Equities, so the loan now is in effect a purchase money mortgage.

The property

The 47 Willoughby Street parcel has frontage of 106 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 10,681 square feet. The zoning is C6-4.5 which allows for up to 12 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $3.8 million.The most recent loan totaled $37 million and was provided by Investment Property Exchange Services on December 31, 2021.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has not received any significant violations in the last year.

Development

On these lots, there is one active new building construction project for a 290-unit, 261,092-square-foot R-2 building. The project was developed by John Evans with plans filed December 30, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

The neighborhood

In Downtown Brooklyn, the bulk, or 40 percent of the 24.3 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space. In sales, Downtown Brooklyn has 2.8 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $946.2 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 4th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Downtown Brooklyn has 2.2 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 7th highest in Brooklyn. It had 2.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 9 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of four of the five commercial properties representing 1,135,680 square feet of the 1,150,080 square feet. The largest owner is Brookfield Properties, followed by Meadow Partners and then MDG Design + Construction.
There is one active new building construction project totaling 261,092 square feet. It is a 290-unit, 261,092-square-foot R-2 building developed by John Evans with plans filed December 30, 2021 and it has not been permitted yet.

the majority, or 97 percent of the 1.2 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 2 percent of the space.

The borrower

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Lonicera Partners owned at least 77 commercial properties in New York City with 313,380 square feet and a city-determined market value of $29.3 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $139.1 million in debt, with top three lenders as Santander Bank, City National Bank, and W Financial respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 60 percent of the 313,380 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with office properties next occupying 21 percent of the space. The bulk, or 98 percent of the built space, is in Brooklyn, with Queens next at 2 percent of the space.

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