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Reuben Brothers delay foreclosure on Century Plaza
UCC foreclosure on Michael Rosenfeld’s $2.5 billion project now scheduled for February
The Reuben brothers — the billionaires fighting for control of Michael Rosenfeld’s $2.5 billion project in Century City — have pushed back a scheduled foreclosure on the property.
The brothers, and their investment vehicle Motcomb Estates, have come to an agreement with mezzanine lender DigitalBridge and a group of EB-5 lenders to push back the UCC foreclosure auction to Feb. 23, according to court documents filed with New York Supreme Court last week. The UCC foreclosure was initially scheduled for Dec. 14.
David and Simon Reuben, which hold more than $1.2 billion worth of debt on the project, initiated a foreclosure against Rosenfeld’s property in September, months after Rosenfeld had actually defaulted on $1.8 billion in loans.
An entity controlled by DigitalBridge, the firm formerly known as Colony Capital, has alleged the Reubens did nothing after the default, delaying a foreclosure to protect their own interests. The entity sued the Reubens and Motcomb Estates in March to salvage the $550 million mezzanine loan it had contributed to the property.
In October, a group of EB-5 lenders followed DigitalBridge’s lead, suing the investor brothers over allegedly engaging in “a wrongful and tortious campaign to destroy [the EB-5 lenders’] undisputed property interest and any real prospect of repayment.”
The Reubens have agreed not to foreclose on the property before Feb. 23, records show.
Both DigitalBridge and the EB-5 lenders have asked the court to review the debt stack before there is a change in ownership, in an effort to protect their respective stakes.
A group of 900 foreign investors each contributed $500,000 to the loan pool in exchange for seeking a permanent visa in the U.S. through the federal EB-5 program.
Rosenfeld, who did not respond to a request for comment, spent about $618 million on acquiring the historic Century Plaza Hotel at 2050 Avenue of the Stars and land for the redevelopment about 14 years ago, court records show.
Since then, total development costs have climbed to about $2.6 billion.
Construction on the two-tower project — which includes a 19-story hotel, 94,000 square feet of retail and 268 condos — was completed last year, after pandemic-related construction delays.