Gary Barnett’s Extell Development is slated to refinance a $235 million land loan at its Central Park Tower condominium project with new debt from a consortium of lenders including Fortress Investment Group, Baupost Group and JPMorgan Chase, The Real Deal has learned.
The financing will close just days after Extell [TRDataCustom] secured a one-week extension on its previous loan from Blackstone, which was slated to come due Dec. 9. Blackstone will remain in the deal, sources said.
The one-year loan gives Barnett breathing room to secure a roughly $900 million construction loan for the 233-unit, 88-story ultra-luxury project, which is set to rise at 217 West 57th Street.
The company secured the Blackstone loan in 2013 and had been hoping to secure a construction loan to replace it, rather than going through a refinancing. Had Extell failed to refinance the debt, its interest rate on the loan would have shot up to 14 percent from 8 percent as part of a standstill deal.
Barnett did not respond to a request for comment Friday on the new loan.
Representatives for Baupost, Fortress and JPMorgan did not immediately return requests for comment.
Baupost, a Boston-based hedge fund, has been active in the New York market in recent months. It recently partnered with Cove Property to buy a 423,000-square-foot office building at 441 Ninth Avenue for $330 million.
Earlier this year, Extell scored approximately $300 million in equity for the project from SMI USA, the U.S. subsidiary of Shanghai’s largest state-owned enterprise. That agreement is also contingent on Extell securing a construction loan.