For Maefield Development’s 20 Times Square, a $900 million CMBS debt has been moved to a specific servicer.
According to Commercial Observer, the loan went into special servicing on November 3 after defaulting as a result of a $26.8M lien filed against the property.
The 42-story building, commonly known as 701 Seventh Avenue, has four deals that make up the loan’s remaining balance. The development of a hotel at the mixed-use property and numerous foreclosures are apparently the causes of the liens.
A 452-key Marriott International hotel called 20 Times Square briefly opened in August 2019; its shutdown a year later was blamed to the pandemic.
According to The Real Deal, the loan was initially provided to Maefield by the French bank Natixis in 2018 with a May 2023 maturity date. According to Commercial Observer, the property’s 99-year ground lease, revenue from the hotel, the four floors of retail space, and electronic billboards in Times Square all acted as collateral.
The National Football League had a 43K SF experiential store in the area that shuttered in 2018, not long after it had opened, and it was intended to be the property’s retail anchor. According to Commercial Observer, the NFL’s rent at the time of the underwriting would have been $8.25M annually.
Maefield’s lease on its own building was pledged as collateral when Natixis financed the deal for Maefield and Fortress Investment Group to buy out its investors and acquire full ownership of the property in 2018. However, Natixis and a group of foreign investors foreclosed on the property when Maefield and Fortress missed payments on their leasehold debt. The lender selected SL Green to oversee the 350K SF building at auction this year with plans to reopen the hotel wing of the structure.
According to information from the Korea Herald, a group of lenders, including institutional Korean investors and Korean banks KB Kookmin, Hana, and NH Nonghyup, are owing roughly $150M in mezzanine debt on the property.
(Costar)