A pair of billion-dollar refis tops the list of Manhattan’s largest real estate loans in December

The top 10 Manhattan loans recorded in December totaled $5.4 billion, two-and-a-half times as much as November’s total. Two large financings broke the one billion dollar mark last month, and both ended up in the top four for all of 2019.

1) Par amount – $1.25 billion
Paramount Group, the real estate investment trust led by Albert Behler, secured a $1.25 billion refinancing from Goldman Sachs for its 2.5-million-square-foot office building at 1633 Broadway. A $250.0 million portion of the non-recourse loan was included in a single-borrower CMBS securitization known as BWAY Trust 2019-1633. The 48-story office building’s 40 tenants include Allianz Asset Management of America, WMG Acquisition Corp and Showtime Networks Inc.

2) Mitsui mortgage – $1.245 billion
In another single-asset CMBS transaction,a joint venture between Mitsui Fudosan America, Related Companies and Oxford Properties secured a $1.245 billion loan from Wells Fargo, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley for the 1.4 million-square-foot office tower at 55 Hudson Yards. The deal closed soon after Facebook signed a 1.5 million-square-foot lease across three Hudson Yards buildings, including 57,000 square feet at 55HY, where the tech giant’s base rent will be $116 per square foot.

3) Vornado venture – $800 million
Citi, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and BMO Harris Bank provided an $800 million refinancing package for the 28-story office tower at 650 Madison Avenue, which is owned by a Vornado Realty Trust-led joint venture. Vornado and its partners, which include Oxford Properties Group, Crown Acquisitions and Highgate, acquired the property from the Carlyle Group for $1.3 billion in 2013. Vornado holds a co-controlling 20-percent stake in the building, which is home to the global headquarters of Ralph Lauren.

4) Cove commons – $724 million
Cove Property Group secured a $724.2 million refinancing package from Blackstone Mortgage Trust for its recently completed office redevelopment at 441 Ninth Avenue, also known as Hudson Commons. Cove and partner the Baupost Group purchased the original eight-story building from EmblemHealth for $330 million in 2016, and added a 17-story structure on top to bring the total square footage to about 700,000 square feet. The property is anchored by Peloton, whose corporate headquarters take up 336,000 square feet,

5) New life – $410 million
Wells Fargo provided a $410 million loan to the owners of the New York Life building at 28 East 28th Street, a joint venture of Jamestown, George Comfort and Sons and Loeb Partners Realty. Jamestown acquired its 49 percent stake in the building in 2016 for $271 million. Amazon-owned grocery chain Whole Foods inked a lease for 60,000 square feet at the base of the property in August, and Facebook was once reported to be in talks to lease the entire building.

6) Clean slate – $390 million
Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies provided a $390 million refinancing package for the Oriana, a 412-unit luxury rental property at 420 East 54th Street in Sutton Place. Built by Harry Macklowe in 1982, the building was acquired by Slate Property Group and GreenOak Real Estate for $390 million in 2016, and the new owners spent more than $60 million upgrading and repositioning the building. GreenOak has since merged with Bentall Kennedy to form BentallGreenOak.

7) Rockrose resi raise – $255 million
Rockrose Development landed a $255 million construction loan from Wells Fargo for a residential project at 555 West 38th Street, the first phase of a two-building project near Hudson Yards. The planned 52-story glass tower will have 598 rental units and will be located across 11th Avenue from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The firm, led by Henry Elghanayan and son Justin Elghanayan, began assembling the West Side site nearly 20 years ago, and construction is now set to be completed in 2022.

8) Garment Chetrit – $210 million
Isaac Chetrit landed a $210 million refinancing from Morgan Stanley for 1412 Broadway, a 415,000-square-foot, 24-story Garment District office property that Chetrit purchased from Harbor Group International in 2014 for $250 million. Lesser known than his cousin Joseph Chetrit, Isaac Chetrit owns about 25 buildings in the city, with sources pegging the value of his holdings at north of $2 billion. The office at 1412 Broadway is one of his most valuable properties, with tenants including StubHub and Workville.

9) Lease & Loan – $202 million
AIG provided a $201.5 million loan to iStar-managed ground-lease REIT Safehold for its $620 million acquisition of the land underneath L&L Holding Company’s 425 Park, a $1 billion office development. L&L is retaining the leasehold on the property and is erecting a 47-story office building on the site. The tower is 48 percent leased, with Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel as its sole reported tenant so far, taking a total of 16 floors.

10) Par amount, part 2 – $200 million
JPMorgan Chase provided a $200 million refinancing for the 33-story office building at 1501 Broadway near Times Square, also known as the Paramount Building. Built by Paramount Pictures as its headquarters in the 1920s, the property is now owned by a partnership between Levin Properties, the estate of Arthur G. Cohen and other investors. The landlord recently completed a $50 million capital improvements program at the building, according to GlobeSt.