NEW YORK CITY — Cushman & Wakefield and Greystone Capital Advisors have co-arranged an $800 million loan for the refinancing of 550 Madison Avenue, a 41-story, roughly 685,000-square-foot office building in Midtown Manhattan. The borrower is The Olayan Group, a family-owned international investment firm.
A consortium of lenders led by Rothesay, a pension insurance company based in the United Kingdom, and ING Capital provided the debt. Several other lending institutions and insurance companies, including Crédit Agricole CIB, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Chubb, also participated in the financing.
John Alascio, Gideon Gil, Alexander Hernandez, Alex Lapidus, Zach Kraft, Meredith Donovan and Cecelia Galligan led the transaction for Cushman & Wakefield. The team collaborated with Greystone’s Drew Fletcher, Bryan Grover and Jesse Kopecky to place the debt on behalf of ownership.
According to Wikipedia, the building was originally constructed in 1984 as the headquarters of AT&T Corp. and would later house the headquarters of Sony. Olayan Group acquired 550 Madison Avenue in 2016 and subsequently implemented a $300 million capital improvement program.
Designed by Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta, the renovation repositioned the former single-tenant headquarters building into a multi-tenant workplace destination. Building features include a triple-height lobby, a half-acre public garden, new interior infrastructure and an amenity club known as The Arch.
“The building’s leasing performance, amenity offering and landmark status, coupled with the overall strength of the Manhattan office market, resonated with lenders and resulted in a competitive execution for our client,” said Alascio, who holds the title of vice chair at Cushman & Wakefield.
“The building at 550 Madison Ave. stands at the intersection of iconic architecture, thoughtful reinvention and long-term ownership vision,” added Fletcher, who serves as president of Greystone Capital Advisors. “This refinancing underscores the depth of institutional demand for best-in-class, fully repositioned office assets in New York City.”
— Taylor Williams