Hartford Square North, Hartford
Leonard Lucas of Love Funding Corp.’s Boston office has secured a $17.5 million loan to refinance an office building in Hartford.
Hartford Square North is a 255,677-square-foot, first-class office building located in Hartford’s central business district. The building owner, a private investment fund, asked Love Funding to find a lender that would be sensitive to the fact that Hartford Square North has and continues to outperform the Hartford office market. Love accomplished that task by finding a conduit lender willing to do just that with a 10-year, fixed-rate loan that carries a 6.3 percent interest rate.
Love Funding Corp. is part of the Love Cos., an investment holding company with origins dating back to 1875. Love Funding commenced mortgage-banking operations in 1984 and continues to serve clients across the United States from its offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, San Antonio, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Knoxville, Tenn., and Palm Beach, Fla.
The company offers funding programs for multifamily properties, affordable housing, condominium development, health care facilities, hospitality and recreational properties, shopping centers, office buildings, light industrial facilities and manufactured housing properties. Love Funding’s sources include conduits, life companies, Agency and the Federal Housing Administration. Services include refinance and acquisition loans for existing properties and construction and development loans for most property types.
CBRE Arranges Financing
The Boston office of CBRE/Melody, the mortgage banking division of CB Richard Ellis, recently arranged $3.5 million in financing for the Landmark Building in Wallingford.
Michael Prakken, senior director of CBRE/Melody’s Boston office, secured the financing for the building’s owner, Landmark of Wallingford Inc. The firm arranged the existing financing for the building in 1998. CBRE/Melody obtained and structured the 10-year, fixed-rate, non-recourse financing through PNC Real Estate Finance, one of the nation’s largest diversified financial services organizations.
“PNC reacted quickly to this lending opportunity and offered an aggressively priced loan and a closing schedule that met the borrower’s expectations,” said Prakken. “Furthermore, PNC was able to generate proceeds in excess of the requested amount, clearly a bonus for the owner.”
“Both PNC and CBRE/Melody did a great job of moving this transaction toward a satisfactory closing,” said Neil Robison, managing partner of Landmark of Wallingford Inc.
The Landmark Building is a fully stabilized Class A office building located just off Interstate 91. Developed in 1988 by the current owners, the Wallingford property offers a variety of floor plans with spaces ranging in size from 660 square feet to 6,000 square feet. The building is currently 95 percent occupied by a diverse tenant base of medical tenants, investment firms and legal practices.
CBRE/Melody, the real estate investment banking division of CB Richard Ellis, originates a broad range of debt and equity capital. In 2005, the firm generated $17.8 billion in real estate financing transactions, and it currently maintains a servicing portfolio of more than 8,000 loans totaling more than $65 billion through its affiliate, GEMSA Loan Services. The firm operates offices in 35 major metropolitan markets in North America.
