Slate Property Group and GreenOak Real Estate secured a $248.6 million loan from Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies to finance their $390 million acquisition of the RiverTower, which closed this week. Blackstone is also providing a $36.4 million construction loan, property records filed Thursday show.
Slate and GreenOak went in contract for the 38-story, 311-unit rental building at 420 East 54th Street in November. Sam Zell’s Equity Residential was the seller and CBRE’s Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan brokered the deal.
Martin Nussbaum, a principal at Slate, told The Real Deal in November that the buyers are not planning to convert the rental building into condos.
“Our business plan right now is to keep everything [in Manhattan] as a high-end rental. We’ll sort of see if that changes along the way,” Nussbaum said.
David Schwartz, also a Slate principal, added that high-end condos are too vulnerable to market swings for Slate’s taste.
“We don’t want to take the risk of the world billionaires who can live in New York or Hong Kong, Sao Paolo or wherever is the hot city of the moment,” he said. “We think that’s a little too risky for our investment thesis.”
Blackstone declined to comment. Slate could not immediately be reached.