Sumi Properties Group refinanced its supertall development site at the former location of the Upper East Side’s Subway Inn with a $100 million loan from Bank of the Ozarks.
The Arkansas-based bank has been in the deal since 2015, when it lent about $115 million on the property collateralized against a $200 million loan Mack Real Estate Group provided to Kuafu Properties, which acquired the six-building site at 143-161 East 60th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues from World Wide Group for $300 million. The deal for the site, which offers about 280,000 buildable square feet, penciled out to north of $1,000 per square foot, making it one of the priciest land deals of this cycle.
Sumi Properties founder Zengliang “Denis” Shan took the property with him when he left Kuafu Properties late last year, bringing along chief investment officer Stephen Muller to the new company.
Sumi paid down $100 million in debt with equity, and Ozarks refinanced the property with a new $100 million loan, property records filed with the city Friday show.
Representatives for Sumi and Bank of the Ozarks could not be immediately reached for comment.
Before Shan and his former partner Shang Dai split, they put the project on hold as the high-end luxury market slowed amid an influx of new condos on Billionaires’ Row, with plans to develop it in the next cycle.