Luzzatto Lands $32M C-PACE Loan for L.A. Creative Campus

Two years after defaulting on debt tied to Sweetgreen’s former Los Angeles headquarters, the Luzzatto Company has secured a new loan for another creative office campus it owns across the street. 

The investment firm, led by developer and former L.A. mayoral candidate Asher Luzzatto, secured $32.4 million in commercial property-assessed clean energy (C-PACE) capital for Depot & Atlas, a 107,156-square-foot office at 3609-3645 10th Avenue in L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood. Nuveen Green Capital provided the funds.

The funds help refinance $54.7 million in debt that Luzzatto secured for the project in 2021. The firm acquired the property that would eventually become The Depot, at 3609 10th Avenue, off-market in 2019. Luzzatto completed The Depot in late 2023, while simultaneously redeveloping the adjacent Atlas building. 

The complex is only 39 percent leased, however, mostly to the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health, which occupies the entire first floor.

 JLL Capital Markets’ Jeff Sause and Lauren Sackler represented Luzzatto in the deal.

“Through C-PACE, The Luzzatto Company was able to pay down existing debt, which will result in significant savings, while positioning the property for long-term success,” Cory Jubran, senior director of originations for Nuveen Green Capital, said in a statement. “This transaction underscores how C-PACE is continuing to emerge as a flexible mainstream financing solution across the West Coast, as well as nationally for commercial real estate projects at various stages of completion.”

Luzzato’s other creative office on the block has faced significantly more distress. 

The company in 2020 acquired a $48.7 million construction loan to build out Exposition 3, a roughly 94,000-square-foot space pre-leased by Sweetgreen at the time for its new headquarters space. Sweetgreen had fully leased the project’s 57,000-square-foot first phase, yet by 2022, opted to consolidate into its smaller, 36,000-square-foot second phase. Sweetgreen had sublet the larger space to none other than Ye for his Yeezy brand operations, though the contract lasted for only a few months, according to reports at the time. 

Luzzatto ultimately defaulted on the debt tied to the property in late 2023, property records show, though the building’s current status was not immediately clear. A representative for Luzzatto did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.