Debt tied to a 49-building Manhattan portfolio owned by Croman Real Estate has been sold.
Flagstar Bank, which is pushing to reduce its exposure to New York City apartment buildings, sold $247M in notes to a shell company managed by Bellwether Asset Management, PincusCo reports.
Farallon Capital Management affiliates lent RXR $200M on 75 Rockefeller Plaza.
The mortgages back properties including adjacent 18- and 19-unit West Village buildings 118 and 120 Christopher St., which have a $23.3M original principal. The portfolio also includes apartments in Murray Hill, Gramercy, Kips Bay, the East Village and Alphabet City.
Bellwether owns 138M SF of office, industrial and retail properties, 161,000 hotel rooms, apartment buildings and residential lots, according to its website.
The loans were all originated by New York Community Bank, mostly between 2015 and 2020, and secure around 680 residential units south of 110th Street. NYCB acquired Flagstar in 2022 and rebranded as Flagstar Financial last year amid a rise in troubled loans.
Centennial Bank lent Bellwether’s affiliate an undisclosed amount to finance the transaction.
Steve Croman is one of New York’s most notorious landlords, named to the New York City Public Advocate’s worst landlords list multiple times. He served a year of jail time in 2017 on felony charges including grand larceny. He was fined a record $8M at the time and last year reached a $514K settlement with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office for allegedly defrauding renters.
As of July, lenders including Flagstar were pursuing seven foreclosure suits against Croman’s real estate company, seeking a total of $51.4M, The Real Deal reported at the time. Flagstar filed another two foreclosure cases on Croman-owned Hell’s Kitchen apartment buildings in September, W42St previously reported.
Flagstar has sought to offload some of the loans on its portfolio since NYCB nearly failed in 2023, including some of Croman’s properties, The Real Deal previously reported.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
RXR refinanced 75 Rockefeller Plaza with a $200M loan from affiliates of Farallon Capital Management, The Real Deal reported. RXR last refinanced the 33-story, 627K SF building in 2022, when Bank of America and the Carlyle Group lent $260M. The new deal with Farallon gives the hedge fund a stake in the building, CoStar reported. It also splits the mortgage into a primary A note and a B “hope note” that RXR will repay if the building’s performance is good, Commercial Observer reported. The building’s leases are around 15% below market value, with the average lease set to expire within six years, according to CO. Newmark’s Adam Spies and Adam Doneger arranged the deal.
***
Brookfield refinanced 660 Fifth Ave. with a $1.2B CMBS loan from Citibank, Bank of America, Santander Bank, Barclays and ING Capital, PincusCo reported. There is an additional $90M in mezzanine debt, Commercial Mortgage Advisor reported. The building was previously known as 666 Fifth Ave. and was renamed as its owner invested $400M in improvements. Eastdil Secured brokered the deal. Combined with its refinancing of 5 Manhattan West, a deal first reported by Bisnow, Brookfield has now secured roughly $2.5B of debt tied to Manhattan offices this fall.
***
A&E Real Estate refinanced a 266-unit Upper West Side rental at 575 Amsterdam Ave. with a $133M loan from Invesco, PincusCo reported. The loan retires a $138M sum from Berkshire Residential Investments. A&E paid $220.5M to acquire the building in 2018, according to the city register.
***
InvestMates scored an $81M construction loan from S3 Capital to build a 14-story residential building at 19-29 Clay St. in Greenpoint. The property will contain a mix of one-to-four-bedroom units. S3 also provided a $12M loan to the developers in 2022 for the land acquisition.
***
M&T Realty Capital Corp. lent $347.4M to TF Cornerstone for one of its Long Island City residential buildings, Commercial Observer reported. The loan for 2-20 Malt Creek, known as Bud South, is backed by Fannie Mae’s Near Stabilization program. M&TRCC’s Michael Casey, Joe Pizzutelli, Michael Jean-Pierre and Michael Edelman originated the financing.
***
Clipper Equity borrowed $84.5M from Citibank and Morgan Stanley to refinance 998-1010 Pacific Ave., PincusCo reported. The loan retires an $80M loan on the 175-unit Crown Heights apartment building from Brookfield Asset Management.
TOP SALES
The empty lot at 140 Fulton St. in the Financial District.
After acquiring a planned hotel development via foreclosure from Hidrock Properties, Bank Hapoalim has sold the lot for $26.4M, Crain’s New York Business reported. Hidrock lost the Financial District site at 140 Fulton St. following a yearslong court battle after defaulting on a $32.8M mortgage in 2022. The new owner of the 6K SF site between Nassau Street and Broadway is developer Rivington Co., which is planning a 99-unit apartment building on the property, according to its website.
***
The Kupferman family has sold a 13-building Brooklyn multifamily portfolio to an unnamed buyer for $45M in an off-market deal, Commercial Observer reported. The deal was split into a 10-building portfolio selling for $36M and a three-building portfolio for $9M. The family had owned the properties since the 1970s. Each building in the portfolio, spanning Boerum Hill, Park Slope, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, has 10 units or fewer. Alpha Realty’s Lev Mavashev and Ben Normatov, who structured the deal, told CO that more than 60% of the portfolio is market-rate.
***
Golden Stone Management acquired a Downtown Brooklyn lot at 245 Duffield St. for $31M, Crain’s reported. The seller, E&R Duffield Holdings Associates LLC, had owned the property since at least 1992. Queens-based Golden Stone plans to build condos on the site and has filed with the Department of Buildings to knock down the existing structure, a now-vacant former Planet Fitness gym.
***
Benenson Capital Partners sold a landmarked SoHo retail condo at 542 Broadway to 109Co for $23M, Commercial Observer reported. Newmark’s Avery Silverstein, Brett Siegel and Ben Lushing arranged the six-story building’s sale.
TOP LEASES
Two tenants doubled their footprints this week at Marx Realty’s 10 Grand Central.
Marx Realty has landed two expansions totaling 24K SF at 10 Grand Central. In the first, Merchants Bancorp is doubling its footprint, moving from 9K SF on the 24th floor to 18K SF on the 14th floor. TMF Group is also growing from 3K SF on the ninth floor to 6K SF on the 34th floor. Asking rents were $94 per SF for Merchants’ space and $120 per SF for TMF’s. Savills’ Chris Foerch repped Merchants, JLL’s Jason Roberts repped TMF, and JLL’s Mitchell Konsker, Thomas Schwartz, Carlee Palmer and Nicole Danyi repped Marx Realty.
***
David Stark Design and Production signed a 32K SF deal for a full Bushwick warehouse at 280 Johnson Ave. The deal also gives the creative agency 5K SF of parking. Space Commercial Real Estate’s Jack Cohen represented the tenant, while Pinnacle Realty of New York’s David Junik and Decio Baio represented landlord Prologis.
***
Stawski Partners signed investment firm Kinderhook Industries to a 10-year, 22K SF lease at 505 Fifth Ave. The deal expands Kinderhook’s headquarters, taking the entire 24th floor in addition to its existing space on the 25th floor of the 26-story building. A JLL team including Paul Glickman, Diana Biasotti and Harrison Potter represented the landlord.
***
Insurance solutions provider Jencap Group signed a 20K SF renewal at Empire State Realty Trust’s 1350 Broadway. Jencap has been in the building since 2016 and has more than quadrupled its square footage since that date. Other tenants include advertising agency Equativ and engineering consultant Brown and Caldwell. CBRE’s Jared Freede and Eric Deutsch represented Jencap, while ESRT’s Kerry Lavelle and Shanae Ursini repped the landlord in-house, Commercial Observer reported.
***
Data platform Haver Analytics renewed its 16K SF at ESRT’s One Grand Central Place, the REIT announced. The deal came with asking rents at $89 per SF and locked the tenant in for another 11 years, Commercial Observer reported. Savills’ Jeff Peck, Daniel Horowitz, Jacob Stern and Eddy Grigg repped Haver Analytics, and Newmark’s Scott Klau, Neil Rubin and Erik Harris repped the landlord.