RXR Realty Lands $160M Refi for Yonkers Community

Sawyer Place. Image by CoStar

RXR Realty has secured a $160 million loan to refinance its recently built community in Yonkers, N.Y., just north of New York City.

Mesa West Capital provided the five-year, floating rate non-recourse bridge loan to RXR for its Sawyer Place community. Walker & Dunlop’s Aaron Appel, Jonathan Schwartz, Keith Kurland, Adam Schwartz, Michael Ianno and Sean Bastian led the team that structured the financing from Mesa West. The latest loan for Sawyer Place replaces a $124.4 million construction loan from Capital One back in February 2017, according to Yardi Matrix data.

RXR completed Sawyer Place, which includes 438 units spread throughout two connected towers, in 2020. The community offers studio, one-, two-, and three-bed units with unit sizes that average 500 to 1,300 square feet, Jonathan Schwartz, told Multi-Housing News. Schwartz also told MHN that 22 of the units are designated as affordable.

RXR built the units with keyless fob entry, in-home washers and dryers and floor-to-ceiling windows. Sawyer Place also includes a roof terrace, indoor theater, fitness center, 24/7 concierge, resident lounge and on-site valet parking. The community was also built with a parking garage with 533 spaces and 31,000 rentable square feet of ground-floor retail.

Sawyer Place is also located near the Yonkers Metro-North station, which gives residents a quick commute into Manhattan and five major highways that connect to the surrounding Westchester County, Fairfield County and New York City. Appel said in prepared remarks that the capital markets saw the value in the location and amenities offered by Sawyer Place, which led to a very competitive financing process.

“Our team and RXR both have a strong relationship with the team at Mesa West having closed numerous deals with them in the past, so there was a level of trust in knowing that they could provide a smooth closing,” Jonathan Schwartz told MHN. “This was in addition to Mesa providing competitive economic terms.”

RXR’S WESTCHESTER PROJECTS

Michael Maturo, president of RXR Realty, said in prepared remarks that Sawyer Place has seen strong leasing velocity from residents in the surrounding Westchester County but also from New York City. According to Yardi Matrix data, Sawyer Place is 93.4 percent occupied.

East of Yonkers, RXR is also working on another mixed-use community in Westchester County. The developer topped out One Clinton Park, its 28-story residential project totaling 352 units, in New Rochelle, N.Y., in February.