Return to Lender: Week of Dec. 7, 2023

Coretrust Capital Partners’ Pasarroyo office building, located in Pasadena, CA, is set for a foreclosure auction on Dec. 20, according to published reports. The property, which holds about 600,000 square feet of office and 40,000 square feet of retail space, is being sold to pay debts secured by the deed of trust. The amount of these obligations, which include the loan’s unpaid principal balance and interest, comes to $271 million and was due on July 6. 

The Chatwal, a luxury hotel in Midtown Manhattan, will go up for auction next month. The property’s mezzanine debt, which was loaned by the Reuben Brothers’ Motcomb Estates, is scheduled for a Jan. 17 auction, Bloomberg News reported. The hotel, located at 130 W. 44th St., defaulted on a mezzanine loan from Motcomb Estates and the Reubens filed a $62.8-million pre-foreclosure proceeding in May on The Chatwal, triggering an auction and placing the mezzanine lender first in line for ownership. 

A foreclosure auction has been scheduled for Dec. 19 on 660 N. Capitol St. NW, a Capitol Hill office building developed by Republic Properties Corp. in 2016. Alex Cooper Auctioneers will conduct the auction, the Washington Business Journal reported. Republic’s lender, Apollo Insurance Solutions Group LLC, filed a foreclosure affidavit with the D.C. Recorder of Deeds on Nov. 25, and John T. Farnum and Jessica L. Duvall of Miles & Stockbridge were named substitute trustees. The filings show a balance owed of $91.97 million. 

Crain’s Chicago Business reported that a venture led by New York investors Isaac Shalom and Billy Shalom has been hit with a $50-million foreclosure suit from loan servicer LNR Partners. The complaint comes six months after the retail property at One North State’s ownership missed mortgage payments and more than a year after the property was listed for sale; it never sold. 

The ownership group of a 12-story office tower along U.S. 75 north of downtown Dallas has filed for bankruptcy, avoiding a foreclosure auction. The Dallas Business Journal reported that an auction had been scheduled for Dec. 5 for Uptown Tower after the owners, Houston-based Pillarstone Capital REIT and Whitestone REIT, defaulted a few months earlier on their mortgage. On Dec. 1, Pillarstone announced that Whitestone Uptown Tower LLC, the ownership vehicle for the property, had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Dallas federal court, canceling the foreclosure.

The current pullback on commercial lending combined with the cratering of office property values has prompted a Hail Mary revamp attempt for one Sunnyvale, CA property, reported the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Weeks after a $63.5-million loan for a recently renovated office park had fallen into default, the provider for that loan, LoanCore Capital Credit REIT, is now moving to demolish the entire property to make way for a new residential development. Located at 1230-1290 Oakmead Pkwy., the four-building office park, known as Horizon Sunnyvale, is owned by Embarcadero Capital Partners. 

As the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY prepares to close at the end of the spring 2024 semester, the question is what will happen to its 48-acre campus, the Albany Business Journal reported. More than 80 properties could become vacant in the Pine Hills neighborhood of Albany. Bondholders hold a mortgage on more than a dozen college properties, including the Massry Center for the Arts and the Centennial Hall dormitory. Collectively, those properties were appraised at $78 million in 2021. The college currently owes about $48 million in bond debt.