Anglo unloads Mark Hotel loan for $190M

Dune Real Estate Partners has agreed to pay $190 million for Anglo Irish Bank’s mortgage loan on the embattled Mark Hotel on the Upper East Side, the Wall Street Journal reported. The note, which had a face value of around $300 million, had several interested bidders, including Starwood Capital, in an offering that had been ongoing for months. Dune now plans to work with Alexico Group, the developer of the landmark, 84-year-old hotel, whose renovation and partial co-op conversion had landed the property in financial straits. Just two of the 10 luxury suites in Alexico’s scaled-back conversion plan have sold for a total of $15.7 million, far short of the $167 million the developer had hoped to raise to pay for its $200 million upgrade. And since Alexico doesn’t own the land under the building, at 25 East 77th Street, it still owes $4 million per year on its ground lease, which expires in 2131. Bradley Burwell, a hotel analyst at CB Richard Ellis, told the Journal that the Dune investment “should relieve pressure on the Mark for co-op sales.” [WSJ]