Brookfield Lands $1.2B Landesbank Loan for 5 Manhattan West
By Cathy Cunningham, Mack Burke and Matt Grossman April 13, 2018 5:03 pm
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Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg has provided a $1.15 billion loan to Brookfield Property Partners for 5 Manhattan West, property records show.
The debt replaces and consolidates $570 million in previous financing from Wells Fargo with a new $580 million loan. It’s backed by the landlord’s properties at 450 West 33rd Street, 368 10th Avenue and a lot on West 31st Street. The deal closed on March 28.
Brookfield (BN)—along with its partner, Qatar Investment Authority—was said to be seeking around $1 billion in financing last November, as first reported by Commercial Mortgage Alert. That came on the heels of Brookfield completing a $350 million redevelopment of 5 Manhattan West. The joint venture was attempting to secure a new, five to seven year debt package, according to CMA.
Architect Davis Brody first designed the 2.2-million-square-foot building at 450 West 33rd Street in 1969 with sloped wings reminiscent of the bottom stage of a rocket ship. Sporting beige and brown facades that were out of step will the more that have more recently blossomed in the neighborhood, the building underwent a transformative inside-and-out renovation in 2014, spearheaded by REX’s Joshua Prince-Ramus, that cloaked the structure in a curtain of zig-zagging glass panels.
Until last year, the building had played home to the Associated Press’ world headquarters since 2004, when it moved there from Rockefeller Center, taking a lease for 291,000 square feet. In 2017, shedding unused space, the wire service moved to smaller offices at 200 Liberty Street in Lower Manhattan. Today, the site’s largest tenants include J.P. Morgan Chase, which occupies 425,000 square feet there, and Amazon, which signed a 360,000-square-foot lease in the building in September, 2017.
During Amazon’s initial leasing talks, sources told Commercial Observer that Brookfield was seeking rents upwards of $90 per square foot.
Officials at Landesbank could not immediately be reached for comment. An official at Brookfield did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
