FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — New York Life Real Estate Investors has provided a $38.3 million refinancing loan for 261 North University Drive, a 172,959-square-foot office building in Fort Lauderdale. The borrower, Encore Capital Management, recently completed a $15 million renovation of the property, including redesigning the lobby, modernizing the elevators, adding new bathrooms and overseeing new tenant buildouts. The asset is situated eight miles west of downtown Fort Lauderdale. Furthermore, the property will be part of a mixed-use development that is set to feature 760 multifamily units, 150,000 square feet of retail space and 400 hotel rooms delivering in two phases by 2022. Kevin O’Grady of Concord Summit Capital and Eric McGlynn of Walker & Dunlop arranged the loan on behalf of Fort Lauderdale-based Encore, and Ryan Doyle and John Lippmann of New York Life originated the loan.
HINESVILLE, GA. — Berkadia has provided a $24 million Fannie Mae refinancing loan for Liberty Club Apartments, a 240-unit workforce housing complex in Hinesville. The borrower, Winter Park, Fla.-based Hillpointe, delivered the property in 2019. The 12-year loan features a fixed interest rate with five years of interest-only payments. Loan proceeds will be used to retire the existing construction loan. The community is located at 915 E. General Stewart Way, 40 miles southwest of downtown Savannah. Liberty Club comprises nine residential buildings, a clubhouse and 11 garage buildings. The property offers two-bedroom floor plans averaging 1,153 square feet. According to Apartments.com, rents range from $1,100 to $1,450 per month. Communal amenities include a pool, fitness center, a dog park and fishing ponds. Michael Weinberg, Alec Fox and Wesley Moczul of Berkadia originated the loan on behalf of the borrower.
LOWELL, MASS. — NorthMarq has arranged a $5.5 million Freddie Mac loan for the refinancing of Mill Falls Apartments, a 72-unit multifamily asset in Lowell, located north of Boston near the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. The property features one- and two-bedroom units. Robert Ranieri of NorthMarq arranged the 10-year loan, which carried a fixed interest rate and a 30-year amortization schedule, on behalf of the undisclosed borrower.
CHICAGO — Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital LLC has arranged $20.5 million in financing for the rehabilitation and preservation of nine affordable housing properties in the West Town and Humboldt Park neighborhoods of Chicago. The nine properties are collectively known as Victory Apartments and span 107 units. Victor Agusta of Bellwether arranged an FHA loan on behalf of the borrower, Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp. The financing also included tax-exempt bonds, a 4 percent low-income housing tax credit and a subordinate mortgage from the Illinois Housing Development Authority. The existing Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments contract was renewed for 20 years.
TEMPE, ARIZ., AND UINTAH AND ROY, UTAH — Hunt Real Estate Capital has funded three Fannie Mae conventional loans, totaling $41.4 million, to refinance three manufactured home communities in Arizona and Utah. All three transactions lowered interest rates for the borrower and provided cash-out options. The three communities, which are 100 percent mission driven and share the same management company, include: Tempe Cascade Mobile Home Estates, a 273-site property built in 1971 in Tempe Cottonwood Estates, an 83-site community developed in 1976 in Uintah Midland MHC, a 224-site first developed in 1938 and redeveloped in 1973 in Roy The loans for Tempe Cascade Mobile Home Estates and Cottonwood Estates share the same terms: a fixed interest rate and seven-year term. The Midland MHC loan features a fixed interest rate, 10-year term and two years of interest-only payments. Tom Houlihan of Sterling Financial Mortgage & Investment arranged the transactions.
BERKELEY, CALIF. — UC Funds has provided a $13 million construction loan for a student housing development in Berkeley. The undisclosed borrower plans to develop a 40-unit student housing project on the site, which is located on University Avenue adjacent to the University of California – Berkeley.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — JLL has arranged construction financing for South Fort Worth Logistics, a 956,020-square-foot speculative industrial project that will be situated on 47.6 acres near Interstates 20 and 35. Halff Associates is designing the project, which will consist of two cross-dock buildings with 36- to 40-foot clear heights, ample trailer parking and storage, 231 loading doors and ESFR sprinkler systems. A JLL Capital Markets team of Dustin Volz, Stephen Bailey, Taylor Coy and Zach Riebe arranged a three-year, floating-rate construction loan through Veritex Bank on behalf of the borrower, a partnership between Invesco Real Estate and Bandera Ventures. The development team expects to complete the project in 2021.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — MassHousing has provided $87.2 million in financing for the renovation and preservation of a 300-unit affordable housing community located at 808 Memorial Drive in Cambridge. MassHousing provided the borrower, Homeowners Rehab Inc., with a $61.5 million tax-exempt construction and permanent loan, $24.9 million in taxable and tax-exempt tax credit equity bridge financing and a $787,763 interest reduction payment (IRP) loan. The project will also use $8.9 million of income during the construction period for development costs. Renovations are expected to be complete by the end of 2022. Bruner Cott is designing the project, and NEI General Contracting is handling construction.
DALLAS — Hunt Real Estate Capital has provided an $11 million loan for the refinancing of Buckner Village Apartments, a 172-unit multifamily asset in Dallas. Built in 1972, Buckner Village Apartments is a garden-style workforce housing community that was approximately 98 percent occupied at the time of the loan closing. The loan carried a fixed interest rate and a 12-year term with two years of interest-only payments. Duke Stone of Churchill Capital placed the loan on behalf of the borrower, Texas-based JAG Acquisitions LLC.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its midyear multifamily outlook report, Freddie Mac predicts U.S. multifamily loan originations will drop severely for all of 2020 due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the big blow the virus has dealt the U.S. economy. The gross domestic product from April to June plunged 32.9 percent on an annualized basis, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. The government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) is projecting that loan volume will decrease 20 to 41 percent across the multifamily sector this year compared with the total dollar amount of loans closed by lenders in 2019, which Freddie Mac estimates was $374 billion. Heading into this year, Freddie Mac expected that loan originations would increase 5 percent in 2020 to $390 billion. Depending on the overall strength of the U.S. recovery and the further spread of COVID-19, Freddie Mac outlined two scenarios for how the year will play out. The more optimistic scenario calls for the unemployment rate to fall just below 8 percent by the end of the year. The U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 11.1 percent at the end of June, will be updated Friday when the Department of Labor releases the nonfarm payroll employment report for July. …