PHILADELPHIA-Imperial/Aramingo LLP, the owner of Imperial Plaza Shopping Center, has obtained first-mortgage financing of $11 million on the 125,648-sf shopping center at 3400 Aramingo Ave. Imperial/Aramingo is an entity of Closter, NJ-based Lerner Heidenberg Associates, which acquired the property in 1999.

NorthMarq Capital Inc. arranged the funding from Lincoln National Life. NorthMarq, which is based in Minneapolis, has a regional office here, and Lincoln is also based here. However, Ernest DesRochers, SVP and managing director of NorthMarq's Greater Westchester NY/CT office in Purchase, NY, and Charles Cotsalas, VP in the company's Long Island, NY regional office, arranged the loan working with the Fort Wayne, IN office of Lincoln. The new mortgage is based on a 10-year term and 30-year amortization.

Imperial/Aramingo has obtained previous funding from Lincoln. It is using the proceeds to retire an existing high-rate loan and replace it with "a very competitively priced life insurance company loan," DesRochers says, without disclosing the rate. "We did a forward rate-lock that fixed the rate in October 2005," he tells GlobeSt.com, "because we wanted to take advantage of the low interest rate, yet get the funding closer to maturity of the existing loan. This feature allowed the borrower to save several hundred thousand dollars on the defeasance charge due under the existing mortgage."

DesRochers says the owners have substantially improved the property since buying it. The center was built in the late 1980s and is now 98% leased. Among the tenants are Bally Total Health, Fashion Bug, International House of Pancakes, Wachovia and H&R Block.