Dealmaker: Gantry Arranges $12.3M for Seattle Ground Lease

(The Epicenter Apartments, Seattle.)

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

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

The property is home to The Epicenter Apartments, a six-story building featuring approximately 130 rental units above ground-floor retail services including a PCC Markets grocery store, restaurants and a coffee bar. Wood said the building is noted for its bold structural art facade program in one of the city’s most culturally diverse communities.

“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 said. “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. Our life company correspondent lenders compete for refinancing on these seasoned ground lease loans and can offer extremely attractive financing where extensive performance history exists.”