Rockpoint, Brooksville in talks for $470M Starrett City loan

Brooksville Company and Rockpoint Group are in talks with Wells Fargo to secure about $470 million in financing for the acquisition of Starrett City, The Real Deal has learned.

Brooksville, a real estate investment firm led by CWCapital alum Andrew MacArthur, and Boston-based private equity firm Rockpoint signed a contract earlier this month to buy Starrett City, the largest federally subsidized housing development in the U.S., for more than $850 million. The deal is not expected to close until early next year.

Meanwhile, the buyers-to-be are seeking financing at around a 55 percent loan-to-value ratio, putting the loan at $470 million, a spokesperson for Brooksville said.

Sources said the firms have been in talks with Alan Wiener, the group head of Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital. But it’s still under discussion if Wells Fargo will provide the loan outright or originate it and then pass it to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

Wells Fargo declined to comment. The bank is a likely contender to provide the acquisition loan, given the bank originated the $531 million Freddie Mac financing on the complex in 2009 and provided $280 million for Rockpoint and Brooksville’s last collaboration – the purchase of Financial District rental buildings at 63 and 67 Wall Street last year.

The 46-building, 5,881-unit Brooklyn affordable housing complex, now formally known as Spring Creek Towers, has not traded hands since it opened in 1974. The sellers are the Deane family and about 100 limited partners, including President Trump, who according to the New York Times stands to pocket $14 million from the sale. The deal would be the largest city’s largest multifamily deal since Blackstone Group and Ivanhoe Cambridge bought the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village complex for north of $5 billion in 2015.