Distress Trouble Continues As Large Office Landlord Seeks Loan Modification
Seattle Times reports: Here's more evidence of the Seattle office market's troubled state:
The region's biggest office landlord, which already defaulted on its loan on the Columbia Center, is playing a high-stakes game of chicken over another mammoth loan it took out three years ago to buy nine more office towers or complexes in Seattle and Bellevue.
Boston-based Beacon Capital Partners borrowed $2.7 billion to buy the Seattle-area properties and 11 others in the Washington, D.C., area in 2007, at the height of the real-estate boom. The package included the 47-story Wells Fargo Center in downtown Seattle and the 27-story City Center Bellevue in downtown Bellevue.
Now, according to a recent report by credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's, Beacon says that in 2010, after subtracting expenses of operating the 20 buildings, its rents from the properties will cover just 20 percent of its debt payments.
And Beacon says it isn't willing to pump any more of its own money into leasing, improving or paying debt on the buildings without a "meaningful loan modification," according to the rating agency.
Global commercial property research firm Real Capital Analytics' Ben Thypin said Beacon's bid to modify the loan stands a good chance of succeeding.
View the full article on Seattle Times: Distress Trouble Continues As Large Office Landlord Seeks Loan Modification
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Posted by: Nina Turner