Tishman Speyer to discuss Stuy Town loan restructuring within week

Stuyvesant Town and Tishman Speyer CEO Jerry Speyer

The owners of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village are scheduled to meet with the special servicer of their $3 billion loan within a week to discuss restructuring the debt, according to information from mortgage tracking firm Trepp.

Special servicer CWCapital sent a note to the loan’s bondholders, saying it would meet to discuss a forbearance on the loan with the borrowers, Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, which bought the massive rent-regulated property on Manhattan’s East Side in 2006 for $5.4 billion.

A loan is transferred to a special servicer if it is in risk of default or the borrower wants to restructure it.

“A pre-negotiation letter has been sent to the borrower by [CWCapital] for signature and it is expected that a meeting will be held with the borrower within one week,” the note sent by the special servicer CWCapital to bondholders said.

Tishman Speyer and BlackRock requested the loan for the 11,227-unit property be transferred to special servicing in order to facilitate a restructuring of the mortgage. The transfer occurred on Nov. 6. 

Steve Kuritz, a senior vice president of commercial mortgage research firm Realpoint, said the special servicer note was typical for a loan that was recently transferred to special servicing.

Kuritz, who had no special knowledge of the loan, said in such meetings the special servicer is trying to determine what the borrower’s intentions are: whether it will give up the property, seek a restructuring or fight it out in a foreclosure battle.

The special servicer, CWCapital, is a division of Canada’s largest pension fund, Caisse de depot et placement due Quebec. Another division of the Canadian fund, lender Otera Capital, took control of 1330 Sixth Avenue in a foreclosure auction after Macklowe Properties defaulted on that loan.

Spokespeople for BlackRock and CWCapital did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Tishman Speyer declined to comment on the meeting.

The landlords are also in negotiations with attorneys representing tenants following a major lawsuit decided in the residents’ favor in October. That ruling from New York state Court of Appeals said the buildings’ owners overcharged tenants in apartments that were illegally deregulated.

Tishman Speyer and the tenants’ attorneys released a joint statement Friday on negotiations between the landlords and tenants, saying: “Both parties are committed to working together to achieve an expedited resolution.”