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Carlyle Group scores $32M construction loan for Crown Heights storage facility
Investment firm renewed building permit submitted by Criterion Group, the lot’s previous owner
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Here come the cubes.
The Carlyle Group on Wednesday scored $31.8 million in construction loans from Santander Bank to build a self-storage facility in Crown Heights. The project will replace a Western Beef meat market that used to stand at 1223 East New York Avenue and has since been demolished.
In Nov. 2020, a Carlyle subsidiary purchased the lot for $13 million from Shibber Khan’s Criterion Group, public records show. Just five months before the sale, Criterion obtained city approval for a three-story self-storage building on the 43,000-square-foot lot. Carlyle has renewed the permits and with the new funding, arranged by Eastdil Secured, appears poised to finally execute on them.
Just one roadblock remains: a stubborn partial stop-work order. On July 13, the city halted the project after a neighbor complained the construction was causing cracks in his basement and shaking his house. The order remains unresolved, although the city has lifted some restrictions for approved work.
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Carlyle’s private equity arm holds at least $26 billion in real estate assets, according to its second-quarter shareholder report. The firm generally steers clear of office, hotel and retail spaces, with the vast majority of its real estate holdings in specialized buildings like self-storage facilities, life-sciences centers and single-family rentals.
All told, real estate accounts for just 17 percent of the firm’s $150 billion in private equity assets under management.
The Carlyle Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.