Crest snags $25M loan for UES rental

Mesa West Capital provided the acquisition financing for 118 East 93rd Street in Carnegie Hill

118 East 93rd Street in Carnegie Hill (inset from left: Bruno Caruso and Russell Frahm)
118 East 93rd Street in Carnegie Hill (inset from left: Bruno Caruso and Russell Frahm)

Montreal-based Crest Realties has landed a $25 million loan from debt fund Mesa West Capital to finance its acquisition of a Carnegie Hill rental building.

“We’ve done a lot of these deals recently, so we had a good sense of the rents and it’s a good asset, a good location and a good leverage point,” Mesa’s Russell Frahm told the Commercial Observer.

Crest, led by Bruno Caruso and Aaron Drazin, picked up the Carnegie Hill rental at 118 East 93rd Street for $39 million last week. The 43,000-square-foot building has 38 apartments, the majority of them market-rate.

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“The loan closed under a tight time-of-essence deadline and provided for the initial acquisition financing as well as a future funding component for capital expenditures,” said Ronnie Levine of Meridian Capital Group [TRDataCustom], who arranged the mortgage with Jeff Berkes.

Caruso and Drazin plan to increase the average rents from $3,000 per month to $6,500 or $7,000 per month as units turn over. “We want to upgrade it to a luxury, high-end rental,” Caruso told The Real Deal.

Crest recently sold a Carroll Gardens condo-to-rental conversion for $21.1 million and a four-building Washington Heights portfolio for $31.2 million. [CO]E.B. Solomont