Dealmaker: Walker & Dunlop Secures $131M for Multifamily, Hotel Assets
Walker & Dunlop, Bethesda, Md., arranged $130.9 million for a Los Angeles multifamily property and a Pittsburgh hotel.
In Los Angeles, the firm rate-locked a $116 million Fannie Mae Green Rewards loan on a shortened trading day in just over three hours from application. The debt refinanced the 582-unit The Heights Luxury Apartments.
A debt-placement team led by Walker & Dunlop Managing Director Trevor Fase was able to begin the due diligence process ahead of time due to its close relationship with borrower RW Selby & Co., Los Angeles.
Fase said the team completed the inspections, third-party reports and Fannie Mae High-Performance Building Report ahead of time. “We were therefore in a position to rate lock at the optimal time for the borrower,” he said. “When a short-term drop in the treasury occurred the day before a holiday weekend, the team quickly leveraged the Fannie Mae Streamlined Rate Lock execution to lock the interest rate on an unprecedented timeline.”
The Class A The Heights Luxury Apartments in West Los Angeles is adjacent to Playa Vista and the Silicon Beach corridor to the west and Culver City to the north. The future L.A. Rams stadium is 2.5 miles away. Following implementation of changes required by Fannie Mae’s Green Rewards program, the property is projected to achieve a 22.5 percent reduction in water usage and other increased utility efficiencies.
In Pennsylvania, Walker & Dunlop closed a $14.9 million construction loan for EVEN Hotel, which will occupy two floors of the historic Kaufmann’s department store building in downtown Pittsburgh.
Built in 1887, this property–nicknamed “The Big Store”–was the largest department store in the area, spanning an entire city block. Original owner Edgar Kaufmann commissioned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design the building’s executive offices.
EVEN Hotel will be part of a master redevelopment named Kaufmann’s Grand on Fifth that will include hotel, retail, multifamily and office space in the same building. Reception Hotels and Resorts LLC, Monsey, N.Y., acquired the building’s fifth and sixth floors to convert them to hotel space.
Orix USA supplied the non-recourse loan, which included three years of interest-only payments.
Walker & Dunlop Vice President Jacob Cohen said the transaction required coordination with several different parties, “not just the borrower and lender, but those who focused on the retail, office, and entertainment spaces within the building, as well as coordinating inter-creditor agreements with the bridge lender for the historical tax credits.”
The building is within walking distance of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the Theater District, PNC Park and Heinz Field, Cohen said.
