NEW YORK CITY — ABS Altman Warwick, a division of ABS Partners Real Estate, has arranged a $13 million refinancing loan for an apartment building in Manhattan. An undisclosed life insurance company provided the nonrecourse loan, which features interest-only payments for 10 years. Located at 232 East 12th St., the 10-story building includes 68 apartment units and also houses two medical offices on the ground floor. Morris Dweck of ABS arranged the loan on behalf of the borrower, Capri Apartments LLC.
NEW YORK CITY — Ariel Property Advisors has brokered the $2.8 million sale of a four-story, 240-space parking facility in the Fordham Heights neighborhood of The Bronx. Located at 305 East 182nd Street, the property is zoned for 35,000 buildable square feet of commercial space and 17,000 buildable square feet of residential space. Jason Gold, Marko Agbaba and Michael Tortorici of Ariel represented the seller and procured the buyer, both parties were undisclosed.
NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, MASSACHUSETTS — An Oxford Economics study for the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that 44 percent of hotel employees in every state have lost or are projected to lose their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. AHLA reports that hotel occupancy rates in some markets are below 20 percent following restrictions of air-travel and business shutdowns in many states, including New York. Of the state’s 112,897 direct hotel operations jobs, 49,674 have been lost or are projected to be lost in the coming weeks. Hotel job loss has also affected other major markets in the Northeast including New Jersey (52,490 jobs, 23,096 lost); Pennsylvania (65,229 jobs, 28,701 lost); and Massachusetts (40,562 jobs, 17,847 lost).
ALBANY, N.Y. — The landlord of Stuyvesant Plaza, a 240,000-square-foot retail center in Albany, has waived retail and restaurant tenant rent payments for a two-week period in response to sales losses during New York’s business shutdown. The policy applies to 60 businesses, including CVS Pharmacy, Starbucks, TGI Friday’s and dozens of other retail and restaurant tenants. The Swyer Cos. owns the property.
NEW YORK CITY — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday, March 20, ordered all nonessential business in the state to temporarily close and called for all residents to stay home in order to prevent further spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Cuomo also ordered a 90-day moratorium on all residential and commercial evictions. The restrictions went into effect Sunday evening. Essential services including hospitals, grocery stores, pharmacies and public transit systems will remain open. Businesses that do not comply will face civil fines. As of Sunday, The Wall Street Journal tracked approximately 12,400 confirmed cases of the virus in New York and 76 deaths.
NEW YORK CITY — Helmsley Spear LLC has arranged a $9.5 million refinancing loan for the 49-room Kings Hotel in Brooklyn. Crown Bank provided the 10-year, fixed-rate loan that carries a 25-year amortization schedule. Located at 2416 Atlantic Ave., the hotel features a fitness center and conference rooms. Showket Ahamed of Helmsley Spear arranged the financing.
NEW YORK — The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) has requested financial support from the federal government to guarantee or directly pay for business interruption coverage for retailers, restaurants, other tenants and landlords as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. In a letter addressed to President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, ICSC cited the $6.7 billion in consumer activity and $400 billion in annual state and local taxes that the retail, restaurant and entertainment industries generate, and appealed to a need to be able to continue to pay employees and suppliers. ICSC also volunteered the use of the parking lots of its member centers to facilitate the delivery of emergency supplies, as well as the construction of temporary health centers and shelters. <Read the full letter>
NEW YORK CITY — Brooklyn-based startup SG Blocks has launched a line of container-based residences designed for personal isolation in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Constructed from shipping containers, the blocks are designed to be cheap and safe places for people who may have been exposed to the virus to live temporarily. SG Blocks is known for repurposing shipping containers for various construction projects, many of which have been incorporated into retail and residential developments nation-wide. Prices of the individual isolation blocks have not yet been determined.
NEW YORK CITY — Amazon has acquired the Lord & Taylor office building in Midtown Manhattan for $1.15 billion, according to the New York Post. The e-commerce giant will use the 660,000-square-foot building at 424-434 Fifth Ave as its New York City headquarters, which will house several thousand employees. A partnership of investors including WeWork-owner Rhone Capital and Saks Fifth Avenue-owner Hudson’s Bay Co. sold the building. The Post reports that as part of the agreement, Amazon will pay $750 million in construction loans that WeWork borrowed to renovate the building. The acquisition follows Amazon’s scrapped plan to open a 4 million-square-foot HQ2 headquarters in Queens, which would have housed 25,000 employees.
NEW YORK CITY — Full-service real estate firm Savills has acquired New York City-based project management firm Macro Consultants. The acquisition expands Savills’ existing advisory and management services platforms, which previously consisted of 50 professionals across the United States and Canada. At the time the deal closed, Macro Consultants, which was led by former managing principal Michael Glatt, employed more than 85 professionals across several major cities in the U.S., including New York City and Philadelphia. Along with those professionals, Glatt has joined Savills as vice chairman and North American head of project management. Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.