William Rudin and the St. Vincent’s Hospital siteThe Rudin family’s $800 million redevelopment of the St. Vincent’s Hospital site is one step closer to a reality. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rudin Management obtained $525 million in construction financing and can begin construction once the government approval process, already underway, is complete.

The relative ease with which the Rudin’s cleared the financing obstacle given today’s tight lending environment was surprising, the Journal said. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon and M&T Bank contributed to the loan.

But that last hurdle, government approval, could be the highest. [more]

Hirschfeld Properties CEO Elie Hirschfeld and 330 East 61st Street (building credit: PropertyShark)

Manhattan property owner Hirschfeld Properties has several deals in the works, CEO Elie Hirschfeld told The Real Deal, and the first one to become official is a refinancing of its 175,000-square-foot building at 330 East 61st Street.

The $10 million refinancing closed last month, with a 6.28 percent fixed rate and a 20-year amortization period, Hirschfeld said. He noted that he made the transaction due to favorable market conditions and the previous loan coming due. Hirschfeld bought the land in 1980, public records show, and erected a structure specifically for a fitness center, which has since become Sports Club/LA, the city’s largest free-standing sports club, according to Hirschfeld, who is a triathlete himself (note: correction appended). While the refinancing was not necessarily done for any improvements within the building — the Sports Club is currently funding a three-year, cosmetic capital upgrade of the space — the firm simultaneously agreed to a $7 million credit facility with the refinancing lender, M&T Bank. [more]

Seattle-based Sabey Data Center Properties has purchased a controlling interest in the former Verizon Tower at 375 Pearl Street for $120 million, according to Crain’s. The 32-story processing center, widely considered one of the city’s worst eyesores, had once been slated to undergo an office conversion under Taconic Investment Partners, which bought the property from Verizon for $173 million in 2007. Those conversion plans never materialized, as Taconic wound up defaulting on its mortgage payments, and M&T Bank took control of the mostly-empty building last year. Sabey has no intention of reviving the offices idea, instead opting to transform the 29 floors it’s taking over into a data processing center that can handle 40 megawatts of power — enough for 40,000 homes — by 2012. [more]

M&T Bank has reached a tentative agreement to sell the former Verizon tower at 375 Pearl Street to a joint venture of YoungWoo & Associates and Seattle’s Sabey for over $100 million, sources told the Wall Street Journal. Verizon sold the 32-story tower, widely considered one of the city’s worst eyesores, for $172.5 million in 2007 to Taconic Investment Partners, which had planned to wrap the gray façade in glass and renovate the 700,000-square-foot property into a modern office tower. But those plans never materialized, and M&T took control of the mostly-empty building last year after Taconic defaulted on its mortgage payments. [more]

It may be hard to believe, but lenders are now actually sending letters of intent to provide construction financing. Construction financing, perhaps the riskiest type of mortgage financing, is available in the tri-state region for rent-regulated and other multi-family buildings. It even exists for condominium projects (and yes, I did say “condominium”).

Gino Martocci, president of the New York City and Long Island region of M&T Bank, said: “We have and continue to provide construction financing for well-capitalized clients. We are in the process of providing construction financing for a brand new hotel in the Union Square neighborhood.” Another established developer who prefers to remain anonymous, who is in the process of building a rental building off Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side, told me that 10 financial institutions have expressed interest in the development. [more]

Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Rep. Jerrold Nadler attended the congressional hearing today

New York City Rep. Jerrold Nadler criticized the federal Troubled Asset
Relief Program at a Congressional hearing today on the impact of Washington’s
efforts to spur corporate and commercial real estate lending. He told the oversight panel that the United States government should
set up new banks or directly fund small, stable banks as a way of
increasing commercial lending in the country. Nadler said the Troubled Asset Relief Program as currently designed
will not be successful, and suggested his idea in testimony before the
Congressional Oversight Panel, which is overseeing the federal
government bailout. “Take a large amount of money — I’m taking this number out of the air
– $100 billion… and form brand new banks,” he said. If that was “too
radical…take a large amount of money, say $100 billion, and fund
existing small and regional banks that have not engaged in risky
speculation and derivatives,” he said. [more]