TODAY’S DEALS: Natixis Provides Post Brothers with $148M for Apartment Acquisition

Philadelphia—Natixis Real Estate Capital has provided $147.8 million of floating-rate financing to Post Brothers for the acquisition and renovation of a 984-unit, multifamily community located in Philadelphia. The four-tower complex is located on City Avenue and just one block from Interstate-76.

The asset is comprised of three 12-story towers and one 13-story tower situated on approximately 23.6 acres in a gated-community setting. The loan was structured to provide additional proceeds to allow Post Brothers to complete the transformation into a luxury rental property through upgrades to the units, facade, landscaping and amenities.

Centerline refinances Illinois apartments

Oak Park, Ill.—Centerline Capital Group has provided a $3.3 million Fannie Mae DUS loan to refinance a multifamily asset in Oak Park, Ill. Located at 1000 Pleasant Street, Fountainhead Apartments is a four-story building (including unfinished basement at partially submerged garden level) with two interior courtyards between the building’s three wings. The property has five distinct addresses but is known primarily by its 1000 Pleasant Street address.

The borrower is Fountain Head Apartments, LLC, an Illinois limited liability company, and Melvyn Kushner.

“The Property was built in 1922 and has been well cared for by the owner who has owned and managed the Property since 1974,” notes Bill Hyman, senior managing director at Centerline. “Oak Park is renowned for the architectural influences of Frank Lloyd Wright and Fountainhead Apartments maintains much of the charm associated with that period.”

Centerline closed another deal in Oak Park with Kushner in mid-2013, Mills Park Apartments, a vintage courtyard garden apartment complex that consists of 76 units housed within two three-story buildings. The property was also located on Pleasant Street.

 Eastern Union arranges financing for $8M construction project

Philadelphia—Eastern Union Funding closed an $8 million refinance for The Pottery Building, a Philadelphia construction project. The loan was originated and arranged by Senior Managing Director Eli Breiner and Loan Analyst Abraham Miller.

The property is located at 105 North 2nd street, and will have 43 housing units and one retail building. The borrower is Doron Gelfand of Gelfand Yardeni Real Estate Development & Management.

The loan was supplied by Fox Chase Bank at a rate of 4.75 percent on a two year term. Most notably however, the arrangement covers 100 percent of hard and soft costs and demands no fresh equity from the borrower.

This is the second such loan Eastern has closed in the last month on these terms‑Real Estate Weekly last week reported an Eastern deal in Far Rockaway which covered 105 percent of the total costs.

But this arrangement also has broader implications.

With overseas investors (Gelfand is from Israel) impatiently lining up to purchase American real estate, Eastern’s latest deal reflects the increasing presence of one small but significant pocket of Middle Eastern-based buyers.

Over a three year period, Israel emerged as the third largest investor of American soil, according to Reuters in an article published the week before this deal closed. For a country barely the size of New Jersey to keep up with the likes of Germany, China and Canada seems to defy common sense.

Breiner, on the contrary, thinks it makes perfect sense.

“Think about it like this,” he said. “You’re an Israeli with funds for a building. You can look in your local market, or you can increase your options by a factor of 10 by comparison shopping in America.”

Reuters also pointed to Israel’s size as incentive for their increasingly ambitious spending habits. They quote Robert Ivanhoe, global real estate practice chair at the Greenberg Traurig law firm. “There appears to be a need for greater diversification and for finding additional opportunities because Israel is a small country and domestic investment opportunities are limited,” he said in the article.