Hackman, Affinius score $75M refi on Amazon-leased Culver Steps 

Lease a property to one of the biggest companies in the world — and L.A.’s hottest chains — and the financing will follow.

Hackman Capital Partners and Affinius Capital have scored a $75 million loan to refinance Culver Steps, a 121,000-square-foot office and retail project in Culver City, according to property records and a report from Fitch Ratings. 

Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo provided the five-year loan, which has a fixed interest rate of 6.62 percent, according to the Fitch report. About 45 percent of the loan was packaged into a commercial mortgage-backed securities deal. 

Hackman and Affinius — the formal name for a joint venture between USAA Real Estate and Square Mile Capital Management — completed the development in 2019. Wells Fargo, in an appraisal tied to the loan issuance, has pegged the project’s value at $130 million, or more than $1,000 a square foot. 

Amazon.com leases the entire 80,000-square-foot office portfolio of the building, under a deal that expires in 2031, according to Fitch. The e-commerce giant has invested more than $10 million into the space. 

Erewhon, a luxury grocer, holds a lease for about 15,000 square feet of the retail portion through 2038. Other retail tenants include ice cream shop Salt & Straw, Mendocino Farms and Sephora. 

And the tenants have been a boon for the development. 

The property’s net operating income soared 41 percent from 2022 to 2023, hitting $6.1 million at the end of the year. The lenders underwrote the deal with expectations net operating income will reach $8.6 million a year, according to Fitch. 

Deutsche Bank’s new loan comes as the German bank works to dump about $1 billion worth of loans tied to commercial real estate in the U.S.