10 Year Interest Only $8,500,000 Refinance of Large Class B Office Building in St. Louis

Transaction Description: George Smith Partners successfully placed $8,500,000 in permanent financing for the refinance of a 270,000 square foot Class B office building located in the heart of Downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The Building has a unique combination of national and local office tenants, as well as storage and data center space. The Property previously had an expensive floating rate bridge loan and the Borrower engaged GSP to find cheaper long term fixed rate debt. GSP ultimately sourced a 10 year non-recourse loan with a fixed rate of 5.39%. The loan is interest only for 10 years.

Challenge: Numerous lenders where not interested in the Property because they were not comfortable with the St. Louis office market which has a soft market occupancy. Additionally, while the Building has strong cash flow, it appeared to have a weak occupancy, which caused lenders to view the Property as unstabilized. As a result, many lenders were not comfortable placing long term fixed rate debt on it. Additionally, many of the smaller tenants in the building were on month to month leases, so most lenders would not give credit to that income. Finally, the seemingly volatile historical occupancy of the Property was concerning to lenders.

Solution: It became evident a large amount of the building’s “vacant” space was actually unusable space. Due to tenant changes over the years, floor space that was previously leasable had become common area space that is now unleasable. As a result, the Property’s occupancy was significantly higher than what it originally appeared. GSP calculated about 20% of the square footage previously counted in the square footage was actually unusable space/common area space. GSP was able to prove to both lenders and appraisers the building was stabilized, it’s cash flow was strong, and its true occupancy was in line with the local market. GSP also demonstrated it was irrelevant to look at any issues with historical occupancy in the Project. Once the current Sponsorship took control of the building, they immediately improved all aspects of the Property. In addition to investing significant capital to improve the Property, they also immediately increased the occupancy, cash flow, and overall quality of the Property.