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Retail Construction Loans: $43,000,000 104% LTC Non-Recourse Construction Financing for Two Large Retail Buildings in the Pacific Northwest

Rate: Blended 3.88% fixed
Term: 25 and 30 years
Amortization: 27.4 and 33.1 years
LTC: 104%
Guarantee: Non-Recourse

Transaction Description:
George Smith Partners successfully arranged $43,000,000 in non-recourse construction financing for two large single tenant retail buildings in the Pacific Northwest. The two buildings are part of a power center and will each house a national tenant with strong credit and a long-term lease. The blended cost of capital for the two non-recourse loans was fixed at 3.88%, and comprised over 100% LTC. This allowed leverage on the entire shopping center to reach approximately 80% LTC. The term of the loans are 25 and 30 years with 27.4 and 33.1 year amortizations respectively.

Challenge:
This being a challenging market for retail construction financing, traditional lenders could not reach the necessary leverage to finance the high construction costs of Retail Phase 1. Construction costs in Retail Phase 1 were disproportionately high as the onsite and offsite infrastructure work were built out for all future phases of a greater mixed-use development. The two large national credit tenants took up the majority of Retail Phase 1’s GLA. As major anchors of the center, these two tenants will be paying substantially lower rents than the inline retailers thus dragging the NOI of the property down causing further issues with the project’s yield.

Solution:
Traditional lenders were constrained by Retail Phase 1’s high construction costs and low yields. George Smith Partners realized the best structure for this project was to bifurcate the center and finance the two large national credit tenant buildings separately from the inline space. GSP was able to identify non-traditional bond investors to make highly leveraged, inexpensive, non-recourse construction loans on the two large national credit tenant buildings. By separating the two larger buildings with lower rents from the inline space of Retail Phase 1, a traditional lender could then aggressively lend on the inline space of Retail Phase 1 because of the higher yields from the inline space. This is a result of a smaller concentration of GLA and substantially higher rents.

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