SL Green Realty has secured an $86 million senior mortgage loan for Landmark Square, an 826,000-square-foot mixed-use property in Stamford, Conn., Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman, which served as SL Green’s advisor on the deal, said today.

The five-year fixed-rate financing was provided by AIG Asset Management on behalf of a wholly owned life insurance subsidiary of American International Group, Cushman said.

Landmark Square sits on a 7.16-acre campus in the heart of Stamford’s Central Business District, and is comprised of seven buildings, including a nine-screen movie theater. — Katherine Clarke [more]

88 Leonard Street
Chicago-based real estate investment firm Waterton Associates closed on the first part of its purchase of 88 Leonard Street from Africa Israel USA this evening, the firm’s managing member and co-founder, David Schwartz, confirmed.
Waterton closed on a 49 percent stake of the 352-unit rental building near Broadway in Tribeca for $37 million. Schwartz, whose firm was represented by Steven Vegh of Multi Investment, said the transfer of Africa Israel’s remaining stake, the senior mortgage and the mezzanine loan would close sometime in the first half of 2012. The prices for those components were $17 million, $132 million and $24 million, respectively, according to a previous report by Bloomberg News, for a total cost of about $210 million. The deal is being closed in two stages for accounting purposes, according to Schwartz.
The purchase was funded by the $500 million Waterton Residential Investment Fund 11 and marks the firm’s second purchase in New York City. It also bought the notes on the Addison Brooklyn at 221 Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn last December. Schwartz said the firm has more New York City transactions pending as it looks to build its presence in the area, but declined to discuss the deals until they close. [more]

The developer of the Lotus condominium in Williamsburg has agreed to hand over 10 apartments to the condo board, settling a private lawsuit and investigation by the attorney general amid complaints about structural defects at the building and thousands of dollars in unpaid common charges.

Developer Steven Kohn signed a “confession of judgment” at Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office June 3, giving the 10 unsold apartments to the condo board, according to documents obtained by The Real Deal. The board will be able to rent out the units to help cover the costs of fixing the building. The developer also signed a personal guarantee, backing up promises made in the settlement. [more]

Steven Kohn

Cushman & Wakefield has acquired the remaining 35 percent interest of its debt and equity finance subsidiary Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman, the commercial real estate firm announced today. As part of the move, it has restructured and expanded its New York Capital Markets Group under the leadership of Steven Kohn, who will continue in his role as president of Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman. The acquisition and expansion in New York comes three years after Cushman & Wakefield’s initial acquisition of a 65 percent stake in Sonnenblick Goldman, an independent real estate investment banking firm. “This is a time of significant and rapid change for the global real estate capital markets and with Steve’s direction and our existing and new talent, we’re aiming to leverage a broad service platform, deep market knowledge and a highly coordinated approach to differentiate our service offering,” said Glenn Rufrano, president and CEO of Cushman. The New York Capital Markets Group will also include the investment sales team of Helen Hwang, Nathaniel Rockett and Karen Wiedenmann. TRD

[more]

From the February issue: It’s been a sort of parlor game in New York’s real estate community for
some time: speculating on whether peak-market buyers will hold on to
their highly leveraged properties.
Then, in a move that shook the industry last month, Tishman Speyer
Properties and BlackRock Realty decided to turn over the keys to the
$5.4 billion Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
But not everyone has gone this route. Other overextended borrowers
have kept control of their properties following a debt restructuring,
including developers Lev Leviev and Joseph Moinian.
As part of a workout — the complex process that’s often decided by
the leverage each party has in the development — the bank or private
equity firm must weigh its options.  [more]

From the July issue: The hurry-up-and-wait mentality that has engulfed many of New York’s distressed asset funds for the last year is still in effect. But the holding pattern could break soon. In this month’s Q & A, brokers, developers and finance specialists told The Real Deal that despite the fact that distressed asset funds have not been making the highly anticipated buys everyone was expecting, they will probably begin doing so at the end of 2009. And, they said, purchasing will really ramp up in 2010. Part of the delay, they said, is that the supply of distressed real estate is not all that plentiful yet because banks have not fully figured out what their assets are worth. Comments

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