RFR’s 285 Madison Back in Special Servicing After Loan Extension
By Mark Hallum November 20, 2024 2:28 pm
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Four months of forbearance from its lenders wasn’t enough for RFR Holding to pull 285 Madison Avenue out of default.
In July, Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’s firm was given until November to pay off the $222 million commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) loan collateralized by the building, and a month ago RFR was ordered by a judge to pay $18 million to one of its lenders on the building.
Now the loan is heading back to special servicing as the duo were unable to secure financing to redeem its ownership of the 530,000-square-foot prewar office building, The Real Deal first reported.
“RFR remains committed to 285 Madison and looks forward to working with the special servicer,” an RFR spokesperson said in a statement.
The setback at 285 Madison is the latest in RFR’s string of financial headaches. Several of its properties are grappling with distress, specifically the Chrysler Building, which the firm was evicted from earlier in the month as Cooper Union, which owns the land beneath the building, officially took over operations.
Rosen and Fuchs tried to fight the takeover in court, but a New York Supreme Court judge cast RFR’s defense as “the flimsiest of flimsy” before siding in favor of the school.
RFR purchased the Chrysler Building in 2019 for $151 million.
By late October, RFR was 90 days late paying a $104.5 million mortgage for 90 Fifth Avenue. In August, a $180 million CMBS loan tied to 17 State Street was sent to special servicing, and RFR was hit with a foreclosure notice for defaulting on a $180 million loan tied to 475 Fifth Avenue. It has also missed recent payments on a $22.4 million loan for One Jackson Square and 219 East 67th Street.
RFR has at least been able to get some respite with a couple of recent sales.
The landlord sold off a retail building leased to Cartier at 102 Greene Street in SoHo for $46 million to an unknown Japanese conglomerate, Commercial Observer reported last week. In October, RFR also sold an empty development site at 175 Third Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn, to Tavros Capital and Charney Companies for more than $160 million, CO reported at the time.
Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.
