Starwood Provides $105M on Meatpacking Restoration Hardware Site
COMMERCIAL OBSERVER · Guelda Voien — 2017-07-20
Bobby Cayre‘s Aurora Capital Associates and William Gottlieb Real Estate today closed a $105 million loan backed by its Meatpacking District property 9 Ninth Avenue, sources close to the deal told Commercial Observer.
The ten-year financing from Starwood Mortgage Capital is interest-only for the entire term, one source said. The take-out loan retires a $60 million mortgage from Wells Fargo, another source added.
**Rob Verrone, principal of Iron Hound Management**, brokered the deal, he confirmed to CO.
“Starwood was just good to deal with,” he said. “They told us what they could do on day one; they were true pros.”
The site is in the midst of conversion to a 60,000-square-foot retail project. Restoration Hardware signed a 15-year lease worth a reported $250 million in 2014, but the sponsors have struggled with Department of Buildings’ permits and controversy that enveloped the project after a construction worker died in an accident there—a death ruled contractor Harco Construction‘s fault last July, as reported by Crain’s New York Business.
Officials at Aurora did not immediately return a request for comment. Officials at William Gottlieb were not immediately available for comment.