$44M Funds Leasehold on White Plains Project

(To read more on the debt and equity markets, click here.)

WHITE PLAINS-Ivy Equities of Montvale, NJ and Barrow Street Capital of New York City, the owners of 275 Main St. here, have secured $44.3 million in leasehold financing for the property known as "the Shoppes on Main." For the past 10 months construction has been under way to redevelop the former Sears department store into a multi-tenant retail property. Wal-Mart will be the anchor tenant, leasing approximately 175,840 sf.

Jay Marshall, senior managing director of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler's New York City office, represented Ivy and Barrow. Calyon provided the A note while UBS provided the B note in the deal. The proceeds of the leasehold financing will be used to retire an existing loan and provide construction/renovation financing for the project.

Anthony P. DiTomasso, Jr., chief executive officer of Ivy Equities, says that construction should be completed by Oct. 1. "Wal-Mart is planning to open the store by the first week of January."

The site totals approximately 260,000 sf of retail space on three floors. Wal-Mart will occupy the first two floors. DiTomasso says that letters of intent are out with two other tenants for the remaining 85,000 sf of space. He says that his firm hopes to finalize the lease agreements in the next 60 days and will then begin construction on the fit-out for those tenants. The property also features six floors of parking totaling about 1,300 spaces located on top of the three retail floors.

In 2003 Ivy and Barrow acquired the leasehold for the 275 Main St. property for $13 million from Sears, which moved its store to the Galleria Mall a few blocks away that year. The Ivy partnership was also interested in acquiring the adjoining White Plains Plaza office building. However, in December 2004 Heyman Properties of Westport, CT purchased the twin-tower office property from MetLife for approximately $60 million.

Ivy's DiTomasso says that his firm has not decided if it will keep the property or put it on the market for sale once the redevelopment project is completed. "We're just talking about this now," he says. "We don't know exactly what we are going to do."

Ivy Equities, which at one time owned about one million sf of office space in Westchester County, is putting its last office asset in the county--411 Theodore Fremd Ave. in Rye--on the market. DiTomasso says the 115,000-sf building will probably be on the market for sale in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

However, DiTomasso adds that his firm does not intend to exit the Westchester market and is currently looking at other opportunities. He says that his firm is an active bidder for the 1.5-million-sf EastRidge Properties portfolio that is currently on the market for sale.