Fee Interest Sale of Distressed LIC Office Asset, Silverstein Lands $165M Construction Loan on Astoria Project, and CRE Diversity Report Card

This week, the nonperforming loan on Soho Properties’ luxury condo tower at 45 Park Place in Tribeca is being marketed for sale; billionaires Vlad Doronin and Len Blavatnik score a $243M loan for Aman in Miami Beach; and we bring you the latest on the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC) conference in Miami. This week, the owners of the Blanchard Building in Long Island City, Queens, are selling the fee interest with eyes on a possible last-mile industrial development; Banco Inbursa supplies a $165 million construction loan for Silverstein Properties’ mixed-use development in Astoria; and a D.C. office property faces default.   Related, BGO Selling Fee Interest in LIC’s Blanchard Building The owners of the Blanchard Building in Long Island City are selling the fee interest on the distressed office property with eyes toward converting it into a last-mile industrial development. [Read More](   TOP DEALS OF THE WEEK - Banco Inbursa Supplies $165M [Construction Loan]( on Astoria Mixed-Use Build - Keiser University [Scores]( $132M to Acquire 9 Campus Properties in Florida - State Farm Refis [New Jersey Industrial Park]( With $50M Loan - NR Investments Nabs $39M [Construction Loan]( for City Hall Development - JBG Smith [Closes]( $188M Loan Facility to Pay Off Arlington Office Mortgage - [Amazon]( Provides $20M Loan for Affordable Housing Development in Capitol Heights, Md.     GUEST COLUMNIST South Florida Multifamily Continues Streak After Strong 2022 Multifamily fundamentals in South Florida remained enviable in 2022, as opposed to many other U.S. markets, wrote Calum Weaver, an executive managing director for Cushman & Wakefield’s Multifamily Group in Florida. [Read More](   Q&A Chris Alexander On Building Gotham’s Legal Cannabis Market Chris Alexander, executive director of New York State’s Office of Cannabis Management, discusses efforts to build up the Big Apple’s legal marijuana market. [Read More](     OTHER STORIES FROM THE WEEK DC Office Building Faces Imminent Default on $38M Loan A $38.1 million CMBS loan on a Washington, D.C., office building that houses the U.S. Department of Treasury is headed to special servicing. [Read More]( Billions of Square Feet of Offices Expected to Be Obsolete by 2030, C&W Finds A new Cushman & Wakefield report found that the U.S. is expected to end the decade with 1.1 billion square feet of vacant office space. [Read More]( After Three Years of Promises, Is CRE Any More Diverse? Three years after making big commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, change in the commercial real estate industry is a mixed bag. [Read More]( Distress Rate in NYC Multifamily CMBS Set to Rise CRED iQ is projecting increased distress for CMBS loans secured by multifamily properties within the New York metropolitan area. [Read More]( Women in CRE Strike a New Balance Three Years Into the Pandemic Women are back in the labor force at the same levels as pre-pandemic, but some things will never go back to normal. [Read More]( Construction Starts Slid 27% Nationwide in January The dollar value of new construction starts across the country declined 27 percent from December to January, to $866 billion, according to data from Dodge Construction Network. [Read More](     WHAT WE'RE READING - World’s rich take [advantage]( as $1 trillion property market craters [Bloomberg] - Office landlord defaults are escalating as lenders [brace]( for more distress [WSJ] - How Trump allies and wealthy donors helped to [fuel]( the GOP fight against ESG investing platforms [CNBC.com]   To forward this newsletter to a friend, [click here](. To manage your email preferences or unsubscribe [click here](. Visit the [Commercial Observer]( for the latest commercial real estate news. For advertising information, [download the media kit](. © Copyright 2023 [Observer Media]( 1 Whitehall Street, Floor 7, New York, NY 10004 This newsletter was published 03/09/2023. [View this email in a browser](.