Massey Knakal Capital Services Arranges $21 Million Loan for New York Client’s Miami Retail
By Carl Gaines August 7, 2012 1:49 pm
reprintsThe Mortgage Observer has learned exclusively that Massey Knakal Capital Services has followed a New York-based client’s needs to the Sunshine State, arranging a $21 million loan a retail property on Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road. Wells Fargo (WFC) provided the ten-year, 4.5 percent loan to the sponsor, Aurora Capital Associates. The loan to value ratio is 70 percent.
Garrett Thelander, managing director at MKCS and director Morris Betesh worked on the transaction. Joseph Tufariello, a managing director at Wells Fargo, worked on the bank’s end.
“This was actually a loan that I had originated at Anglo Irish Bank,” Mr. Thelander told The Mortgage Observer. “So I had an existing relationship with Aurora Capital.” Mr. Thelander joined MKCS in 2011 after working as an executive vice president at Anglo Irish Bank, where he helped set up the New York office.
The original loan was a $17 million acquisition loan that was coming due in 2012.
“The sponsor, Aurora Capital Associates, had done a great job repositioning the retail by upgrading the tenancy and increasing the rents to market-rate,” Mr. Betesh explained. “The high debt per-square-foot is a testament to the strength of the Lincoln Road retail corridor and the sponsor’s proven track-record of managing high-end, urban retail assets.” The debt per-square-foot Mr. Betesh mentioned was $1,400.
Though Messrs. Thelander and Betesh declined to reveal the address of the Aurora Capital Associates building, Lincoln Road as a whole is a major shopping destination in the city and it has been the site of much interest of late on behalf of New York-area real estate firms . In early July, for instance, REIT Vornado Realty Trust (VNO) announced that its Vornado Capital Partners fund had bought 1100 Lincoln Road, which is 97 percent leased to retail tenants like Regal Cinemas and Anthropologie. The fund bought the 167,000 square foot property for $132 million.
Because of the value inherent in such a retail area, Mr. Thelander noted that MKCS had “found a lender here that was very familiar with Lincoln Road.” Mr. Betesh, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of the lender’s familiarity with the area as well, saying that others were “maybe not able to get their arms around the high value per square foot.”
cgaines@observer.com
