Developers get $135M in construction loans

In a sign that the credit markets are loosening, two developers have secured $135 million of state-backed construction loans, Crain’s reported. Two Trees Management has closed on a $77 million loan to finance its Clinton Park residential and commercial Z-shaped project at 770 Eleventh Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, the Brooklyn-based company’s first development in Manhattan, and its largest, at 1.2 million square feet. Landlords Savanna and Monday Properties closed a $58 million loan from private investor PCCP to fund a renovation at 386 Park Avenue South, a 20-story art deco office building in Midtown South. Two Trees’ loan, which was granted by the state’s Housing Finance Agency in the form of bonds, is for the first phase of the 900-unit rental complex, which was designed by Enrique Norten. “We are excited to have been able to start building it during these difficult times and see it come to fruition,” said Jed Walentas, who runs Two Trees with his father, David. The Walentases have invested more than $100 million of their own money into the project, which will include a 330,000-square-foot Mercedes Benz showroom, and with a total cost estimated at $600 million. [Crain’s]