NEW YORK CITY — BlackRock and Tishman Speyer have agreed to hand over control of New York City's Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village to their lenders. The two companies will transfer control via a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure to CWCapital Asset Management, which is currently acting as special servicer for five CMBS trusts that previously held the property's $3 billion loan. The loan was transferred to the special servicer in November after the lenders filed a request for relief.
Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village comprise 110 buildings located in Manhattan. The community's 11,000 units make up one of the largest affordable housing properties in the nation. They were built in the 1940s by Metropolitan Life, which sold them to BlackRock and Tishman Speyer in 2006 for $5.4 billion. Tishman and BlackRock planned to convert many of the rent-regulated apartments into luxury units, but the plan ran into a multitude of setbacks even before the recession hit.
Fitch Ratings currently values the property at $1.8 billion — approximately 40 percent of the balance of the partnership's loan. In addition to the $3 billion senior loan, the property also has a $1.5 billion mezzanine loan, whose holders could delay or attempt to halt efforts to transfer control of the property to CWCapital if they feel the agreement does not adequately satisfy their debt holdings.
Efforts to contact BlackRock and Tishman Speyer were not returned as of press time.
— Coleman Wood