Tamares Group Seals $505M Loan Extension for Times Square’s 1500 Broadway 

Tamares Group just sealed a four-year extension for its $505 million debt package on 1500 Broadway in Times Square, Commercial Observer has learned. 

With longtime tenants “Good Morning America” and Nasdaq leaving their spaces at the building this summer, the extension will allow the owner to prepare the trophy office property — with a premium location in Times Square’s bow tie between West 43rd and West 44th streets — for its next chapter with new tenants.  

“1500 Broadway offers a unique opportunity very few retail spaces and signs can compete with,” Tamares Group Chairman Poju Zabludowicz told CO. “We have owned this asset for 30 years. This is a new era, and we are feeling very positive about it.”

The debt on the property consists of a $335 million commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) senior loan, and a $170 million mezzanine loan — held outside of the CMBS trust — from Nuveen. Both the senior and mezz loans have now been extended and the senior loan, once securitized in the TMSQ 2014-1500 single-asset, single-borrower (SASB) deal, is now securitized in the TMSQ 2024-1500 transaction. 

Iron Hound Management’s Chris Herron, Anthony D’Amelio, Jack Casper and Will Forbes led the restructuring, with SL Green Realty advising Nuveen in the transaction. Rialto Capital is the CMBS special servicer in the transaction. 

As part of the transaction, Tamares made a roughly $20 million equity infusion into the property, as well as a roughly $20 million payment for leasing and capex as part of the property’s stabilization, sources said.

The senior loan on the Times Square office building was transferred to special servicing ahead of its October 2024 maturity date. At the time, the building was sitting at around 75 percent occupied, with a couple of big lease expirations around the corner this year. 

ABC’s “Good Morning America” — which has filmed at 1500 Broadway since 1999 — is moving to Walt Disney Company’s new Hudson Square campus this summer, and occupies 66,000 of 1500 Broadway’s 520,000 total square feet. The studio space, with the famous backdrop of Times Square activity and tourists, is perhaps one of the most famous studios in New York City. 

Nasdaq, which leases 53,000 square feet at 1500 Broadway, is also moving out at the end of August to 150 West 42nd Street, where it also currently occupies space, in a bid to consolidate operations. 

When those tenants leave, however, Tamares Group will have a wealth of top-tier, diversified space to offer new tenants. 

“We are in preliminary discussions with some potential tenants for the Disney space,” Itrat Sayeed, a managing director at Tamares Group, told CO. “We’re also working on some concept plans for expanding the signage at the building. On the office front, we’ve seen a significant return for demand for office space. So all three of those fronts have very positive outlooks.” 

There are plenty of pluses for a new tenant ready to say “Good Morning America!” or at least, “Good Morning Times Square!” in ABC’s studio space. 

“The Disney space is on a corner and comes with great signage. The space has very high ceilings and can accommodate retail, experiential or studio tenants. The location, right in front of the [New Year’s Eve Times Square] ball drop, has one of the widest pedestrian plazas within Times Square. All of those aspects make it a very unique opportunity.” 

Other tenants at the building include Ice Miller law firm, which leases 19,500 square feet at the property, and Shanghai Construction Group America, which occupies 12,850 square feet. 

It’s not often that office buildings have a happy story to tell today, but Tamares Group was proactive in initiating a successful extension for its CMBS loan well in advance of its October maturity date. Sources said that all parties in the deal negotiated in good faith to make sure the property was adequately recapitalized and had enough term left on the loan to see the lease-up time through. 

“Tamares Group recognized a need to begin conversations around an extension well in advance of the maturity of the loan, and demonstrated a commitment to the asset from the very beginning, as evidenced by a significant new capital investment towards the restabilization of this trophy office building in Times Square,“ Iron Hound’s Herron told CO. 

“All options are on the table for [the Disney] space, given its location and prime time Times Square frontage,” Herron added.

Cathy Cunningham can be reached at ccunningham@commercialobserver.com