A&E Real Estate Holdings [TRDataCustom] locked in a $171.3 million refinancing for an eight-building portfolio, which includes some of the most valuable rental properties it owns, according to sources and property records.
The multifamily landlord’s new long-term debt from Mesa West Capital and Customers Bank values the properties at a combined $310 million, sources told The Real Deal. The refinancing comes after A&E recently paid off a $111.1 million loan from Blackstone Group on the properties.
The package, referred to in records as the “Metropolitan portfolio,” spans three boroughs – Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx – and Westchester County. It contains three buildings in Queens’ Rego Park neighborhood, three in the Bronx’s Concourse Village, one on the Upper East Side and one in Yonkers.
Two of them are among A&E’s most valuable buildings: a 12-story, 110-unit Upper East Side rental at 245 East 80th Street and a six-story, 198-unit Rego Park rental at 98-41 Queens Boulevard. Records show the financing values them at $107 million and $59.2 million, respectively. A&E’s bread-and-butter is prewar, rent-stabilized walk-up buildings in working-class neighborhoods. Therefore, the 80th Street building it owns with private equity firm AllianceBernstein is an outlier.
The other addresses for the properties in the city are 909 and 910 Sheridan Avenue; 65-09 99th Street; 99-12 65th Road; and 185 East 162nd Street.
Together, the properties located in the city hold 709 rental apartments and span about 447,000 square feet, records show.
A spokesperson for A&E declined to comment.
A&E, one of the city’s largest residential landlords, owns more than 12,000 rental apartments in the city. Douglas Eisenberg and John Arrillaga Jr. have steadily grown the firm’s holdings since forming it in 2011. A&E recently went in contract to buy seven Queens buildings from Ares Management for $82.8 million.
(To view a list of commercial sales transactions involving A&E Real Estate Holdings, click here)