Wells Fargo Expands One Vanderbilt Financing With $455M in Debt
By Cathy Cunningham, Mack Burke and Matt Grossman April 4, 2019 4:39 pm
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Wells Fargo (WFC) has provided $455 million in debt to SL Green (SLG) Realty Corp. for its continued development of its much-anticipated new skyscraper One Vanderbilt, according to property records filed with the city today.
The San Francisco-based lender supplied a $455 million building loan, according to documents included in the filing. At the same time, SL Green made a $130 million advance on a 2016 project loan. Assuming that prior mortgages on the building remain in place, that would bring the full debt load for the project to $2.2 billion.
In 2016, SL Green, the project’s builder, first sealed a $1.5 billion financing package from a quartet of lenders for work on the planned tower, at the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and East 42nd Street adjacent to Grand Central Station. That debt was from Wells Fargo, The Bank of New York Mellon, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of China. The building, projected to reach 67 stories, got a refinancing last year which raised $250 million in additional debt, according to The New York Post.
The financing comes hot on the heels of four office leases in the building representing 250,000 square feet that closed in December. Four tenants, including a deal for SL Green itself to take a spot in the building, signed on the dotted line. TD Bank, real estate company MFA Financial and the McDermott, Will & Emery law firm were the others.
The National Pension Service of South Korea and Hines became part owners of the building when they bought a combined 29 percent equity share of the project for $525 million in 2017.
Kohn Pedersen Fox architects were responsible for drawing up the blueprints before construction began in 2016. The building is expected to top out next year.
In March, SL Green announced in a presentation at the Citi Global Property CEO Conference in Florida that it was looking for a joint venture partner to take a stake worth between 15 percent and 19 percent in the $3.2 billion asset, which it said is fully capitalized. That month, The Carlyle Group decided to up its presence at the building—which is 54 percent leased, as of early March, according to SL Green—to 128,000 square feet.
SL Green announced in its January 2019 fourth quarter earnings call that it was planning to put some of its holdings on the market in order to fund a stock-buyback program. Shortly thereafter, its asset at 521 Fifth Avenue was put on the block, with CBRE’s Darcy Stacom leading the marketing efforts, as CO first reported at the time.
Officials at Wells Fargo and at SL Green were not immediately available for comment.
