These are NYC’s Largest Financing Deals of 2024

Build, baby, build!

Gary Barnett, Steve Witkoff and the Zeckendorfs received financing packages totaling $1 billion or more in 2024 for their construction projects — helping lead a resurgence in big-ticket debt deals.

The 10 largest loans of the year totals $11.3 billion, a significant increase from $5.4 billion in 2023.

Helping push that figure was the year’s largest deal: Tishman Speyer’s $3.5 billion refinancing of Rockefeller Center. The CMBS loan was the largest single-asset, single-borrower (SASB) deal in history.

Other big financings included office towers, apartment buildings — and even a mall.

Here, then, are New York City’s biggest financing deals of 2024.

Rock Center refi | $3.5 billion

Tishman Speyer tops the list with its $3.5 billion refinancing of Rockefeller Center.

The deal was significant for its sheer size, with Tishman being able to secure so much debt at a time when lending is tight, particularly in the office sector. The financing was the largest CMBS deal since 2022, and the biggest single-asset, single-borrower (SASB) deal in history.

Tishman used the debt to retire $3 billion in debt, including a $1.7 billion loan the landlord took out 20 years ago with an interest rate of 5.6 percent. The new debt, with a much shorter term of 5 years, has an interest rate at 6.5 percent.

Gary’s UWS tower | $1.2 billion

Barnett’s Extell Development locked down a $1.2 billion loan to refinance its luxury condo project near Lincoln Center.

JVP Management provided the debt for the 69-story, 127-unit luxury condo project at 50 West 66th Street. As part of the deal, JVP acquired at least $840 million in construction debt that BankOZK had provided for the project two years earlier.

Construction topped out in the summer, and Extell announced that it had sold 50 percent of the building’s condo units.

3) One High Line | $1.15 billion

Steve Witkoff and Len Blavatnik reached a significant milestone for this once-troubled development project.

Witkoff Group and Blavatnik’s Access Industries secured the $1.15 billion loan for their One High Line development from JP Morgan and Adi Chugh’s Tyko Capital. The project, which includes 236 condos across two towers and a planned 5-star Faena Hotel, had previously been called The XI by Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital Group, which lost the property to foreclosure in 2021.

Witkoff and Blavatnik took over, and at the time of the financing in August said they had closed $800 million in sales during the first half of the year.

4) Hudson Square construction loan | $1 billion

The Zeckendorfs got the check they needed to bring uptown luxury to … the West Side Highway.

London-based Cale Street Partners and San Francisco’s Farallon Capital Management provided the developers and their partners at Atlas Capital with a $1 billion construction loan for their project at 80 Clarkson Street.

The two-towered project will rise on what was the northern end of the St. John’s Terminal. (Oxford Properties converted the southern portion into offices for Google.)

The project will include 271 condominium units in one tower and 169 affordable senior apartments in the other.

5) 1 Liberty Plaza | $750 million

Brookfield refinanced this Financial District tower after consolidating its ownership the previous year at a $1 billion valuation.

The company in 2023 acquired a 49 percent interest in the property from the building’s co-owner Blackstone Group. The $1 billion valuation was a sharp drop from the $1.5 billion figure the office tower was valued at in 2018 when Brookfield sold the minority interest to Blackstone.

Morgan Stanley provided the debt on the 2.3-million-square foot tower from , which Brookfield used to replace a $783 million loan.

6) 277 Park | $750 million

The Stahl Organization had to cut a significant equity check to refinance its 277 Park Avenue office tower.

The company kicked in $250 million for building improvements to secure the $750 million from a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank. Many lenders have been requiring landlords to put cash into their buildings in order to refinance debt.

The borrowing cost also went up. The previous mortgage had an interest rate of 3.6 percent, Crain’s reported the rate on the new debt was expected to be closer to 7 percent.

Stahl has owned the 1.8-million-square-foot building, which counts M&T Bank as one of its largest tenants, for more than six decades.

7) 60 Wall Street | $575 million

Paramount Group landed this $575 million refi for its 60 Wall Street office tower, the former headquarters of Deutsche Bank that is undergoing a major revamp.

The Albert Behler-led REIT secured the financing from Germany’s Aareal Capital. A $259 million portion has a 12 percent interest rate, and the remaining $326 million portion has a 7.8 percent floating interest rate.

Paramount Group has been working on a $250 million redevelopment of the 47-story, 1.6-million-square-foot property that was left vacant when Deutsche Bank left for the Time Warner Center in 2022.

8) Douglaston’s Hudson Yards tower | $560 million

Douglaston Development and Ares Management got a $500 million CMBS loan to refinance their 60-story apartment tower in Hudson Yards, dubbed 3eleven.

Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo originated the loans, which the developers used to repay the project’s $415 million construction loan. There was also a $60 million mezzanine loan. Along with the refinancing, the joint venture returned $115.5 million in equity to the sponsors.

Douglaston and Ares completed the 938-unit building in 2023. The debt valued the building at $930 million, or roughly $1 million per unit.

9) 8 Spruce Street | $550 million

Blackstone tapped the muni market to refi its 8 Spruce Street apartment tower.

The private equity giant got $550 million from the New York City Housing Development Corporation to refinance the 900-unit tower. A little more than $200 million worth of the debt came in the form of tax-exempt Liberty Bonds, which were authorized in 2002 to lower Manhattan recover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Blackstone purchased the Frank Gehry-designed building for $930 million in 2002 from Brookfield Asset Management and Nuveen.

10) Queens Center Mall | $525 million

Macerich got a favorable rate to refinance one of the best-performing malls in the country.

The REIT got a $525 million loan from Deutsche Bank at an interest rate of 5.9 percent. The company described the rate as “extremely attractive,” Crain’s reported.

The mall’s stores brought in more than $425 million in sales in the year ending last March, working out to $1,739 per square foot. New tenants Primark and H&M are moving in after Forever 21 and Gap left their spaces. Occupancy is at 91 percent.