BETHESDA, MD-The owners of the Bradley-Arlington Complex, a 151,221-square-foot mixed use complex here, have secured $40 million in CMBS permanent financing. Cassidy Turley’s John Campanella and Paul Spellman arranged the loan on behalf of the owner, an LLC.

Cassidy Turley recently arranged funds for another, separate retail transaction: $20 million to refi the debt on Westbrook Partners’ Metropolitan Shops at Prince George’s Station. That loan was provided by a European bank that was returning to the local market after the 2008 market crash. 

The Bradley-Arlington Complex, located at 6917 and 6931 Arlington Rd. in Bethesda’s CBD, is managed by Harvey Property Management. Scheer Partners is the leasing agent.

Retail CMBS was the focus of a recent Standard & Poor’s report, "Rising Online Sales Could Keep Retail Vacancies Elevated.” In it, the rating agency calculated that a 1% increase in the percentage of online sales would lead to a 0.6% increase in the retail vacancy rate.

And as vacancies rises, retail CMBS will eventually feel the pinch. "A rise in the vacancy rate could have a negative effect on CMBS credit," said research analyst James Manzi in the report. "New transactions with retail property concentrations of nearly 50% could be hit especially hard."

It is doubtful that the Bradley-Arlington Complex would fall into this category: the property is currently 96% leased to a mix of office and retail tenants with staggered lease rollover. It also has a historically high occupancy rate, making it an ideal asset to back a CMBS transaction. However, the S&P report points to future of tighter underwriting for retail CMBS in general.