Santa Monica Clock Tower Loan Hits Special Servicing
The 12-story office was just 43 percent occupied as of September, per Morningstar
By Nick Trombola June 17, 2025 2:35 pm
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A broken clock is right twice a day, but even that won’t save it from financial distress.
The $26.7 million commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) loan, tied to the Santa Monica Clock Tower Building, has been transferred to special servicing after missing its maturity date in May, according to a Morningstar report. The 12-story, 1930-built office tower was for a long time the tallest building in Santa Monica.
The Real Deal first reported the news.
Los Angeles-based investment management firm Rockwood Capital acquired the roughly 54,000-square-foot property, at 225 Santa Monica Boulevard, in 2019 for $58 million. Deutsche Bank issued the loan, and Midland Loan Services is the debt’s special servicer, per Morningstar documents.
Representatives for Rockwood did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the office building’s occupancy provides some clues. The tower was fully occupied at the time of the CMBS loan’s issuance in 2015, per Morningstar, but dropped to just 43 percent by September 2024. Law firm Shegerian & Associates, which had occupied 16 percent of the office’s square footage, departed the building after its lease expired last year.
Like many other cities across Southern California, Santa Monica’s office market is still struggling in the wake of the pandemic. The city contains the highest office inventory of any other city on L.A. County’s Westside, at 13.7 million square feet, according to a first quarter market report by Avison Young. Still, its office availability is also among the highest of the Westside cities, hitting 29.9 percent in the first chunk of 2025, per the report.
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
