GSP Provides $60M for Office Project

EL SEGUNDO, CA-George Smith Partners has funded $60 million of financing for the JH Snyder Co. and Goldstein Planting Investments’ Gateway Office Project here. The financing included $47 million of CMBS nonrecourse first mortgage debt priced at 5.2% fixed for five years and $13 million of preferred equity.

“In the new era of CMBS financing, this project was an excellent model of the future with multiple layers of capital for a project that was transitioning to stabilization,” says Steve Bram, managing director of George Smith Partners.

The Gateway Office Project is located at Sepulveda Blvd. and Grand Ave. The project includes 328,000 square feet of office space located in three four-story campus style buildings built in 1980 and 11,000 square feet of newly constructed retail space. Parking for 1,292 cars is provided in the subterranean garage and surface lots, a marked advantage to the multi floored parking structures of the competitive buildings. The project also features plazas and interior courtyards, which give most tenants direct access to their own operable windows and outside air.

A  JH Snyder venture led by current Goldstein Planting founders Cliff Goldstein and Drew Planting, purchased the complex for $63 million in 2007 at 50% occupancy from a local family. They renovated the project, constructed a new retail building and brought occupancy up to near 90%. 

George Smith Partners was hired early on by Goldstein Planting & Snyder while negotiations were ongoing with the previous lender. With the George Smith Partners financing options in hand, the borrower was able to pay off the previous lender. “We were very pleased with the outcome of the financing,” says Cliff Goldstein, president of the venture. “In a very difficult financing marketplace, Steve Bram and his team at George Smith Partners restructured the Projects financing to meet our venture’s requirements.”

JH Snyder is a large developer in California, having built 41,000 residential units and 6 million square feet of commercial space during the last 60 years. While senior partners at JH Snyder Co., Cliff Goldstein and Drew Planting helped manage and develop more than 4 million square feet of retail, residential, and commercial space. In 2009, they formed a real estate fund, Goldstein Planting Investments, to aggressively pursue West Coast value added opportunities that require “seasoned management and operating expertise.” In partnership with the Snyder Co., they will continue to manage the operations of the El Segundo project.