The latest commercial property loan to go into special-servicing is at a surprising address: RFR Realty’s 757 Third Ave. at 48th Street, a nearly 500,000-square-foot office tower. The $126 million loan was quietly shipped into special servicing via LNR this month.
RFR, owned by Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs, boasts some of Manhattan’s legendary office towers — the Seagram Building and Lever House among them — as part of a portfolio of over 5 million square feet of office and luxury residential properties. RFR is also teamed with Ian Schrager in the Gramercy Park Hotel.
The 757 Third Ave. loan, which matures in 2014, was facing “imminent default,” according to a trustee’s remittance report dated June 17. The default warning and special-servicing were first spotted by TreppWire, a Web site that closely monitors the CMBS markets and provides daily commentary on commercial real estate.
Through a spokesman, RFR told us, “the loan was put into special servicing so it could be restructured” but provided no other details.
TreppWire senior managing director Manus Clancy noted that 757 Third Ave. also carries $60 million in subordinated debt that isn’t part of the special servicing — but “negotiations might include the subordinated debt.”
Bank of America is the trustee, not the lender, on the debt, which was packaged into a complex securitization backed by 108 different properties.
Oddly, unlike other distressed office addresses rocked by high vacancies or imminent large lease expirations, 757 Third Ave. is substantially full, occupied by tenants including KPMG and Rosen Seymour Shapas Martin.
Although we reported last month that law firm Aaronson Rappaport Feinstein is moving out, it has only 27,000 square feet. The largest lease, for advisory firm KPMG’s 197,764 square feet, does not expire until May 2012.
Art-collecting Rosen, married to socialite Samantha Boardman, has certainly been in the news.
Last year, he went into talks regarding his portfolio loan on office buildings in Stamford, Conn., which has since been modified and extended. He recently settled a lawsuit with former partners at 520 Fifth Ave. and at the Lexington Avenue site of his aborted Shangri-La hotel.
And he recently was forced to cut the asking price of a townhouse he’s been trying to sell on East 94th Street.
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A new restaurant is coming to Flatiron: Zio, a contemporary Italian place that just signed a 15-year, 5,000-square-foot lease at 11 W. 19th St. It is not related to the Zio’s Italian Kitchen chain popular in the West, but an independent operation under owner Darren Berman.
Savitt Partners’ Bob Savitt, Michael Dubin and Carol Sacks repped the landlord, a partnership that includes Savitt. Abraham + Martin’s Michael Duncan and John Belitsky repped the tenant.
Savitt predicted the new eatery, to open in the first quarter of 2011, “will be a hit among discerning diners.” The 280,000-square-foot building between Fifth and Sixth avenues is home to office users including Time Warner, Nautica and Tory Burch.
Savitt said Zio’s rent was about $65 a square foot. The space was previously occupied by a club, and he said “we’re pleased to get an Italian tablecloth restaurant” to replace it.
Berman was part of the team at Bice Group. He says Zio will mingle Mediterranean- style cuisine, tra ditional Italian and “new-modern” influences. [email protected]