From left: Jared Kushner of Kushner Companies, Vornado’s Steven Roth and 666 Fifth Avenue

Jared Kushner’s Kushner Companies has completed a refinancing of its mammoth tower at 666 Fifth Avenue with Vornado Realty Trust, Bloomberg News reported. Vornado is injecting $80 million of equity into the project in return for a 49.5 percent stake in the tower, while Kushner will also contribute $30 million to the refinancing.

Under the agreement, the tower’s senior debt will be reduced to $1.1 billion from almost $1.22 billion, a source with knowledge of the deal told Bloomberg. The equity contributions will cover the costs of leasing the 30 percent of the building that’s currently vacant, the source said. [more]

LNR Partners, the Miami Beach-based special servicer, has filed a foreclosure suit against Houlihan Parnes Realtors and CLK Properties, alleging the firms defaulted on $53 million in loans backed by a Long Island office property.
The suit, filed in New York state Supreme Court, alleges Houlihan and CLK defaulted on the loan in November 2010, by failing to make monthly debt service payments. The property is a 315,000-square-foot office building at One Old Country Road in Carle Place, N.Y. [more]

From the South Florida website: A foreclosure action is being prepared against CityPlace, a 756,471-square-foot mixed-use center in West Palm Beach owned by New York-based developer the Related Companies, according to a report by Trepp. Data sent to Trepp from LNR Partners, the special servicer of the $150 million mortgage, indicates that payments stopped in April, the South Florida Business Journal reported.

LNR may have CityPlace on a dual track for foreclosure and modification, Trepp analyst Spencer Hollerith said, meaning that it’s preparing to foreclose on the property while still continuing its discussions with CityPlace.

“I can’t say that foreclosure is imminent,” he said. [more]

Joseph Moinian and 100 John Street

Developer Joseph Moinian has closed on an $84 million loan extension at the Financial District rental tower the Renaissance, where he had been facing a foreclosure lawsuit from special servicer LNR Partners, a representative for the developer said today.
Moinian, CEO of the Moinian Group, had been in talks with his lenders to refinance the loan for more than a year, according to records from commercial real estate analytics firm Trepp. As The Real Deal previously reported, LNR filed to foreclose on the property in February, alleging that Moinian had not been making monthly mortgage payments despite taking in $550,000 per month in rent at the 221-unit property and despite having been notified of his default on the loan in August 2010. Negotiations for a loan modification were still ongoing at the time. “This extension allows us to move forward with the planned renovation of this core asset and once again demonstrates our commitment to working with our banks and lenders to secure the long-term success of our portfolio,” Moinian said in a statement provided to The Real Deal. [more]

The Belnord and Extell’s Gary Barnett

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development has transferred its $375 million loan secured by the Belnord to mortgage servicer LNR Partners, which specializes in restructuring troubled debt, Fitch Ratings told Bloomberg News.

Just last week, The Real Deal reported that Extell had defaulted on the $375 million loan. Extell, then known as Intell Management and Investment, purchased the building in 1994. The purchase was made with a group of investors including Ziel Feldman of Property Markets Group, which is no longer involved. The property has since been renovated.  

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Charles Kushner of Kushner Companies, Vornado’s Steven Roth and 666 Fifth Avenue

The large office and retail landlord Vornado Realty Trust is negotiating with Kushner Companies to buy a stake in 666 Fifth Avenue’s equity and is talking with representatives of the building’s lenders to cut its debt, several industry sources said.

The real estate investment trust Vornado would pay an undefined “nine-figure” sum (meaning something between $100 million and $999 million), according to a source, for a piece of the building.

Sources gave conflicting accounts of how far along any deal was. Several said no deal was finalized, and one said Kushner was talking with multiple potential partners such as funds. But it was clear that Kushner was actively pursuing investors in the building.

In the spring of 2010, Kushner asked that the $1.2 billion in securitized loans on the 1.5 million-square-foot building located between 52nd and 53rd streets, be put into special servicing with LNR Partners, so that the debt could be restructured. [more]

LNR Partners co-CEO Justin Kennedy and the Renaissance Developer Joseph Moinian is facing a foreclosure suit from LNR Partners, after defaulting on a $93 million mortgage loan at the Renaissance, a 221-unit luxury rental tower at 100 John Street in the Financial District. LNR, in the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court Feb. 17 alleged that Moinian was notified of the alleged default in August 2010. As The Real Deal previously reported, Moinian has been in negotiations with Miami Beach-based LNR on a deal to refinance the loan after falling behind on the balance. “Specifically the borrower has been receiving approximately $550,000 a month in rents every month without making monthly payments to the lender under the note and mortgage for approximately a year, even though it has been given notice of its default by the lender,” said LNR attorney Bruce Zabauraskas, in an affidavit. [more]

From left: 246 Fifth Ave. and an example of structural damage there (inset), a vacant retail spot in the building

The owners of an over-leveraged and aging mixed-use building in the Flatiron District are in a rush to unload it as special servicer LNR Partners files to foreclose on the building’s defaulted $14.5 million loan and wipe out their equity, an industry source said.

The landlords of 246 Fifth Avenue, an L-shaped property on the southwest corner of 28th Street, bought it in July 2007 for $20 million, financed with a $14.5 million loan, city property records show. That loan went into default after the owners stopped making payments in March 2010, LNR’s lawsuit filed last month in New York State Supreme Court shows. Florida-based LNR is suing on behalf of investors in a package of commercial loans.

The property’s owners this past Friday hired David Schechtman, a senior director at Eastern Consolidated, to market the building. He declined to provide an asking price or additional comment. The owners and LNR did not immediately respond to requests for comment. [more]

Two loans backing 16 buildings in the Bush Terminal near the waterfront in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, have been transferred to special servicers following a default by the owners, according to Fitch Ratings. The loans — one for $250 million and the other for $50 million — were originated by Goldman Sachs in September 2007 with a maturity date of September 2017, Crain’s reported. The master servicers are Wells Fargo and Midland Loan Services, and LNR Partners is the special servicer. [more]

Delinquency uptick driven by Pinnacle-Praedium default on Upper West Side

The volume of seriously impaired CMBS loans in New York City grew by 3.8 percent last month after a portfolio of 1,083 Upper West Side apartments co-owned by Pinnacle Group and private equity partner the Praedium Group slipped further into delinquency, according to October data from Trepp compiled for The Real Deal. The data includes CMBS loans backed by New York City properties whose payments are more than 60 days overdue. The Pinnacle-Praedium delinquency — the fourth-largest of 49 such loans in the city — was solely responsible for the increase, which put the city’s total volume of loans more than 60 days delinquent at $4.9 billion (see the full list of seriously delinquent New York City CMBS loans after the jump).

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