Highland Realty Capital arranged an $14.56mm cash-out refinance on 3317-3325 Exposition Place, a 30,000sf creative office conversion leased to The RealReal. The CMBS execution resulted in a 10-year term, interest only structure at a 65% LTV and 8.1% debt yield.
A venture between Lion Real Estate Group and The Borman Group acquired the property in December 2017 and completed an expansive re-purposing to creative office. The property was attractive to the tenant due to its location along the Expo Line and close proximity to the new Crenshaw/Expo station that will also serve the Yellow line connecting to LAX, South Bay to the south and Hollywood to the north.
This was the partnership’s 7th deal with the previous adaptive reuse properties located in the Arts District. “We were looking for other areas at the early stages of revitalization since values and pricing in the Arts District have increased so dramatically making it difficult to find interesting opportunities,” states Jeff Weller, Managing Principal and Co-Founder of Lion Real Estate Group.
Mike Guterman of Highland Realty Capital handled the financing for the venture, having also worked with the partnership on the Virgin Hyperloop One creative office campus in the Arts District and The Borman Group’s Boyle Heights conversion on 4th Street, The Bridge and Corner.
About Lion Real Estate Group
Lion Real Estate Group, LLC is a Los Angeles-based real estate investment and development firm founded in 2007 by Jeff Weller and Mory Barak. Lion Real Estate Group focuses on acquisition of value-add and opportunistic multifamily and creative office properties by leveraging its principals’ experience in order to create value for its investors through renovation, repositioning, better management and optimum capitalization of its properties. Lion has an entrepreneurial team that possesses a track record in the execution of sophisticated investment strategies and has been a part of more than $1 billion of joint venture, equity and mezzanine real estate transactions. The firm currently owns and operates 2,611 units across fifteen multifamily properties and three office properties located in the Los Angeles, Nashville, Durham, Dallas, and Austin areas.
About The Borman Group
The Borman Group is a multi-disciplinary, value-add real estate design and development company that has repurposed over 500,000 square feet of creative office, retail and multi-family units in downtown Los Angeles.
About Highland Realty Capital
Highland Realty Capital (HRC) is a leading commercial real estate financing firm, with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, serving developers, owners and investors in Western U.S. markets. The firm’s principals have expertise with structuring and arranging all types of debt—construction, bridge mezzanine and permanent loans, equity financing, and workouts—and work with capital sources and lenders nationwide to provide clients with the most competitive and flexible financing options available for all types of commercial real estate projects and transactions. The collective depth and breadth of their experience and longstanding capital relationships has provided Highland Realty with a successful track record for financing certainty, flexibility in structuring deals and delivering value and client support. Over the last decade, the firm has completed in excess of $6 billion in transactions including office, industrial, retail, hospitality, multi-family, mixed-use and residential development.