Here come the foreclosures.
Wells Fargo acting as a trustee for bondholders is seeking to foreclose on a APF Properties office building at 28 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan.
The lender alleges in a lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court that APF defaulted on a $180 million loan backing the 22-story building near Bryant Park in January.
APF’s principals Ken Aschendorf and Berndt Perl are named as defendants in the lawsuit for providing guarantees on the loan.
In 2014, JPMorgan lent $180 million to the “Club Row” building. The loan was bundled together with other loans through securitization and sold to investors in 2015. LNR Partners was hired as the servicer.
The 105-year-old building became a casualty of WeWork’s bankruptcy. In 2023, the co-working firm filed bankruptcy slashing leases throughout the U.S. as part of its restructuring. This included 28 West 44th Street where WeWork leased two floors of the 371,000-square-foot building.
The lender agreed to restructure the loan after the borrower’s undisclosed “event of default” in March 2024. But by January, the loan matured and APF failed to pay off the $180 million debt, according to the lawsuit.
The property is among the many older office buildings in New York that have faced challenges since Covid. Still, lenders and servicers are more opt to extend loans as opposed to foreclosing and taking a loss.
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