Dealmaker: Pillar Originates $46M for Multifamily Properties

Pillar, New York, originated $46.1 million in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae funds for multifamily assets in Atlanta, Chicago and Burlington, Ky. 

In Atlanta, Pillar originated an $18 million Freddie Mac loan to refinance The Flats at Atlantic Station, adjacent to Georgia Tech’s campus and close to other Atlanta universities. The four-story student housing property delivered in 2006. 

Colin Whittier, Director in Pillar’s Dallas office, originated the floating-rate seven-year loan with a 30-year amortization schedule. He noted that IPA Capital Markets, Calabasas, Calif., brought the financing opportunity to Pillar. The transaction, which refinanced an existing Freddie Mac loan, closed on July 29. 

“We worked closely with Freddie Mac to ensure the agency fully understood the property’s value and the sponsor’s longtime multifamily and student housing management experience,” Whittier said.

Pillar also originated a $16.9 million borrow-up loan with Fannie Mae for an existing $112 million facility backed by five multifamily properties in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, Gold Coast and Uptown neighborhoods. Lancelot Lie, Multifamily Originations Director in Pillar’s Chicago office, secured the four-year fixed-rate loan with a 30-year amortization schedule. 

Lie originated $8.61 million on a 16-story building at 25 East Delaware and $2.69 million on a multifamily property at 18 East Elm in the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood. He originated $2.65 million on a property at 4100 N. Marine Drive, $2.285 million on 426 West Surf and $740,000 on a property at 2828 North Pine Grove Avenue. 

Lie said the loan closed within 52 days, “which included significant modification to the existing facility to allow for a co-seniority borrow-up loan rather than a supplemental structure.” 

In Burlington, Ky. near Cincinnati, Pillar originated an $11.2 million Fannie Mae loan for Sky Harbor, a 1988-vintage multifamily property  property renovated in 1998. Pillar Senior Director Joe Markech and Associate Brooke Jackson arranged the fixed-rate 12-year loan with a 30-year amortization schedule.

To compliment the 1998 renovation, the seller upgraded unit fixtures in the past few years. “Our client intends to utilize cash flow to facilitate further upgrades to the property’s exterior and interior to apply rental rate increases,” Markech said.

Markech  said the transaction was a 1031 exchange with finite timing parameters.