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Extell to refi $235M land loan at Central Park Tower

Fortress, Baupost, JPMorgan among new lenders on the project

Central Park Tower and Gary Barnett
Central Park Tower and Gary Barnett

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.

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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.

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