Dealmaker: Walker & Dunlop Secures $90M for Office, Land Assets
Walker & Dunlop, Bethesda, Md., structured $89.5 million in financing for Georgia and Florida office and land assets.
In Marietta, Ga., the firm secured $44.3 million for 347,500-square-foot Class B office property Marietta Technology Center. Praelium Commercial Real Estate and South Street Partners refinanced the multi-tenant center as part of a restructuring and recapitalization process.
A Walker & Dunlop team led by Managing Director Mark Strauss and Vice President Rob Quarton identified a large investment bank as the lender for the assignment. They structured the seven-year fixed-rate loan with interest-only payments at maximum leverage for the loan’s full term.
The refinanced assets included four single-story office buildings built between 1983 and 1985. “We positioned the opportunity to highlight the key strength: a long-term lease with an investment-grade tenant,” Strauss said.
Quarton noted the property represented a secure loan with an experienced sponsor in a growing market with predictable long-term cash flow.
Located less than a mile from Atlanta’s primary northwest/southeast artery Interstate 75, the Marietta submarket benefits from its proximity to the city, several Fortune 500 corporation offices and technology startups.
Walker & Dunlop also arranged $45.2 million for two south Florida land refinancings. Eric McGlynn and Kevin O’Grady, both Managing Directors in the company’s capital markets group, arranged the nonrecourse loans, effectively lowering interest rates on each property’s existing land loan.
The first loan totaled $33 million and was secured by the parcel of land that will host the new Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences Miami at 300 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami. Property Markets Group, New York, is developing the project with joint venture partners Greybrook Realty Partners, Toronto, and S2 Development, Aventura, Fla. When complete, the hotel and condo tower will stand 98 stories high with a 140-key hotel and nearly 400 condo units.
BridgeInvest, Miami, supplied the loan and structured it to allow for approvals to be finalized and condo sales to launch. The interest-only, nonrecourse financing will allow the developer to exit with limited prepayment premiums.
The second refinancing totaled $12.2 million for 130 acres in central Boca Raton, Fla., that formerly hosted public golf course Mizner Trail Golf Club. A Compson Assocs. affiliate has entitled the land for a 255-unit single-family and townhome development. McGlynn and O’Grady secured new financing from New Gables Capital, New York, which supplied a full-term interest-only loan at a lower rate than the existing loan and gave the owner an additional 12 months to complete predevelopment activities.
“Both loans were similar in that they were refinancing existing land loans that achieved a better cost of capital for the borrower,” McGlynn said. “Also, both projects had a very significant amount of cash equity investment which gave the lenders comfort that the developers would see these projects through and ultimately repay the loans.”
