Major Office Building Investment Goes Back To The Lender

I am not sure if this is a harbinger of what might be coming down the road, but Blackstone, one of the world’s largest owners of real estate just gave the keys of 1740 Broadway, New York, to a special servicer on its $308 million dollar loan.  It paid $605 million for the building in 2014 but lost two huge tenants. The cost of tenant turnover can be immense, and Manhattan has an office vacancy rate over 17%. It might take a year or two to find replacement tenants and even then the tenant improvement expense could be in the $100-125/rsf range. Bisnow reported “Blackstone’s decision to cut its losses at 1740 Broadway echoes recent moves in Chicago, another office market suffering from macroeconomic shifts. Last week, two towers each spanning over 1M SF were on track to find themselves in the hand of lenders, according to CMBS tracking firm Trepp…The problems going forward are going to come from primarily markets that have sizable amounts of dated properties that are not particularly desirable to big drivers of demand these days,” Trepp Senior Managing Director Manus Clancy told Bisnow in January. “You’ll see episodes in New York, Chicago and other places where big buildings that back loans with nine-figure balances become distressed.”