Wafra signs $180.8M rehab construction loan in Upper West Side

Wafra Inc. through the entity 720 Wea Ventures LLC as borrower signed a rehab construction loan with lender Pacific Western Bank valued at $180.8 million for the specialty building at 720 West End Avenue in Upper West Side, Manhattan.
The deal closed on December 22, 2021 and was recorded on January 19, 2022. The prior lender was Apollo Global Management which held debt that had an original loan amount of $110.8 million.
The property has 237,507 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The loan price per built square foot is $761 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 December 22, 2021, for $168 million.
The signatory for Wafra Inc. was Jason Schwartz.
Over the past five years, there have been 8 NYC Department of Buildings permit applications filed for this parcel valued at more than $20,000. Of those there was one major renovation application including a certificate of occupancy change (A1) filed with a total estimated value of $21.2 million. There were 7 renovation/alteration projects (A2) applied for with a total estimated value of $614,000. One of the projects were to change the building from a J-2 to a R-2and change the number of residential units from 352 to 117.
Commercial Observer reports that plans for the building are not yet known but may include conversion to a residential condominium. Related Companies provided mezzanine funding.

In Upper West Side, the majority, or 68 percent of the 95.5 million square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with residential walkup buildings next occupying 13 percent of the space. In sales, Upper West Side has the 8th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.5 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Upper West Side has 1.9 times the average amount of major developments relative to other neighborhoods and is the 11th highest in Manhattan. It had 1.8 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 2 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.
On the tax block, the majority, or 40 percent of the 599,158 square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 40 percent of the space.

Within a 400-foot radius of 720 West End Avenue, PincusCo identified seven commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those seven items, two were in new building development. There were one new building permit application and one new building permit. The most recent of these two items was a filing on March 16, 2021 for a 124,591-square-foot R-2 building with 171 residential units at 270 West 96th Street.
Of those seven items, three were sales above $5 million totaling $61.4 million. The most recent of the three was Fetner Properties and PGIM Real Estate which bought the 3,750-square-foot, one-unit mixed-use building (K2) on 268 West 96th Street for $16.1 million from Salvation Army on January 3, 2022.
Of those seven items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $114.4 million. The most recent of the two was Fetner Properties which borrowed $88.5 million from Wells Fargo secured by the 6,660-square-foot industrial (U7) on 266 West 96th Street and two other properties on January 10, 2022.

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