The top 10 Manhattan loans recorded in March totaled $1.73 billion, just 4 percent up from the month before. RXR Realty topped the list with two big office refinancings that closed on consecutive days.
1. Pier reviewed – $375 million
RXR’s first big April deal was for Pier 57, which Scott Rechler’s firm is redeveloping with Youngwoo & Associates. Nuveen Real Estate provided a 10-year, $375 million balance sheet loan for the property, $50 million of which is earmarked for finishing off the project’s construction and moving in tenants. Google, the pier’s anchor tenant, is leasing about 350,000 of the complex’s 480,000 square feet in office space after inking an expansion last year.
2. Old Slip, new debt – $319 million (recorded value)
One day later, RXR secured a floating-rate, five-year loan from Mesa West Capital for its office building at 32 Old Slip in the Financial District. The loan was valued at $404 million, of which $319 million was recorded in city records last month. RXR bought the office building in 2015 for $675 million, and then sold the land to a David Werner-led partnership in a 150-year leaseback deal. The refinancing comes shortly after a major overhaul of the building’s lobby.
3. Condo Is Mortgaged – $179 million
CIM financed its $200 million acquisition of (most of) an Upper East Side rental tower with a $178 million mortgage from Pimco Commercial Real Estate Debt. The property at 165 East 66th Street had recently been split into residential, garage and retail condominiums, and Miami-based developer Crescent Heights held onto the retail condo while selling the remainder to CIM. The new debt replaces a previous Bank of China loan from 2015.
4. CCRE-dit – $152 million
CCRE provided Chetrit Group and partner Read Property Group with a $152 million refinancing package on the American Express building at 65 Broadway. The financing comes at a time when the Chetrit Group has been exiting from many of its other joint-venture holdings, such as 9 Dekalb Avenue in Brooklyn – for which JDS Development group recently secured a $664 million loan, the largest outer borough loan in April.
5. Extell-lent, part 1 – $145 million
Extell Development landed more than $267 million to refinance two Manhattan development sites in April. The larger of the two, a $145 million refinancing from Van Nguyen’s JVP Management, went to an Upper East Side assemblage that Extell has been putting together over the years. The loan replaces previous financing from Bank OZK and covers nine parcels, including 1639 and 1641 First Avenue, which the developer acquired in January.
6. Moxy mortgage – $124 million
LoanCore Capital and KSL Capital Partners put together a $155 million refinancing package for Lightstone Group’s 349-key Moxy Chelsea hotel. The hotel at 105 West 28th Street opened in February and is the second of five Moxy hotels Lightstone is developing in New York City. The financing replaces a $58 million construction loan provided by Bank OZK in 2016.
7. Extell-lent, part 2 – $122 million
The second development site Extell refinanced in April was at 1710 Broadway in Midtown, for which JVP Management provided another $124.4 million in financing. The developer had put the site on the market last year after planning a residential tower there with an address of 211 West 54th Street, but evidently changed course. The new debt replaces a Bank OZK loan from 2017.
8. Tech, financed – $120 million
Bank OZK provided a $120 million construction loan to RAL Development for the Union Square Tech Training Development Center at 124 East 14th Street. RAL is developing the project through a joint venture with Junius Real Estate Partners. The project is a partnership between the New York City Economic Development Corporation, RAL and Civic Hall, a technology-training nonprofit that will be the building’s anchor tenant.
9. Broadside – $100 million
Princeton International Properties landed a $100 million refinancing from New York Community Bank for its 25-story, 413,000-square-foot office building at 90 Broad Street in the Financial District. The new financing replaces an $80 million loan from Wells Fargo in 2017. Princeton acquired the property from Swig Equities for approximately $129 million in 2014.
10. OZKondos – $95 million
Bank OZK had a busy April, following up its Union Square Tech Center loan with another $95 million in construction financing for the 15-story, 25-unit condo project at 150 East 78th Street on the Upper East Side, which is being developed by Midwood Investment and Development and EJS Real Estate.