Dealmaker: Gantry Secures $12M for Seattle Multifamily

(The Epicenter Apartments, Seattle.)

Gantry, San Francisco, secured $12.3 million to refinance a fee-simple ground lease in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. 

The property at 620 N. 34th Street houses The Epicenter Apartments, a six-story building with 130 rental units above ground-floor retail services including a PCC Markets grocery store, restaurants and a coffee bar. The building’s structural art facade stands out even in one of the city’s most culturally diverse communities. Locals call Fremont “the center of the universe,” hence the building’s name.

Gantry Principal Mike Wood and Associate Alex Saunders with the firm’s Seattle production office secured the loan for a private investor client. They placed the 10-year fixed-rate loan with one of Gantry’s correspondent life company lenders. The loan refinanced a pending maturity previously financed by Wood.

“Ground leases are a unique asset type, where a property owner can establish a cash flow from real estate ownership without having to fund construction or take on long-term asset management responsibilities,” Wood noted. “This parcel is as secure today as it was two decades ago for urban multifamily uses, and the continued performance of The Epicenter informed our underwriting for the ground lease financing.”

Wood said life company lenders compete to refinance seasoned ground lease loans and can offer extremely attractive financing where extensive performance history exists.