Nomura Provides $185M Refi for Fort Lauderdale Office Tower

Stiles and Shorenstein Investment Advisers nabbed a $185 million loan to refinance an office tower in Downtown Fort Lauderdale. 

The floating-rate senior loan from Japanese financial services group Nomura covers the Main, a 25-story building that the borrowers completed in 2020. The 1.4 million-square-foot property at 201 East Las Olas Boulevard includes 387,401 square feet of leasable space. 

The development is fully occupied with tenants that include J.P. Morgan Chase and Raymond James, according to JLL, whose Paul Stasaitis, Geoff Goldstein and Blake Koletic represented the borrower in the debt transaction. Restaurants Moxies and Fogo de Chao occupy the ground floor. 

The project was built on a 2.7-acre site, which remains under the ownership of state-run Broward College, after Blackstone provided a $204 million in construction debt in 2018.

The refinancing comes as the Downtown Fort Lauderdale investment sales market has softened. Deutsche Bank’s asset manager sold two neighboring office complexes for little gain last year, about a decade after purchasing them.

“The emergence of discerning lenders like Nomura readily available to provide capital solutions for office-owner clients represents a welcome evolution within the office sector,” Stasaitis said in a statement.

The refinancing is the first single-asset, single-borrower loan issued by Nomura since relaunching its credit platform in the U.S. market last year and hiring Barclay’s former head of CMBS finance Larry Kravetz, according to a representative for Nomura.

A spokesperson for Stile confirmed the loan, while a representatives for Shorenstein Investment Advisers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Correction: The story was updated to clarify that the refinancing debt was Nomura’s first single-asset, single-borrower loan, not first real estate loan since relaunching in the U.S., as previously reported. 

Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com.