Senior Note on 80 Broad Comes to Market

NEW YORK CITY-The senior mortgage loan on Swig Equities’ 80 Broad St. is coming to market, courtesy of special servicer J.E. Robert Co, which has hired Cushman & Wakefield to sell the $75-million note. Steven Kohn, president of Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman and head of C&W’s New York capital markets group, says in a release that strong demand for the note is expected.

Kohn cites the quality of the 410,000-square-foot office property and its location, the quality of the existing tenant base and the upward momentum in pricing for properties and loans that have traded in recent months. Working with Kohn on the note sale will be C&W’s Helen Hwang, Nat Rockett, Karen Wiedenmann and Alex Hernandez.

The New York Post reported on Tuesday that Swig defaulted on a $12-million mezzanine note. However, a spokesman for Swig tells GlobeSt.com, “The mortgage payment for 80 Broad is fully current.” He  adds, “The purchase and sale of debt in today's market is commonplace and the motivation of one party to sell its position is often a business decision not necessarily related to the performance of a specific property.”

Swig acquired 80 Broad for $70 million in 2004 and took out a $75-million senior mortgage loan two years later, following a major lobby renovation on the 80-year-old Lower Manhattan tower. The Swig says the 36-story property’s current occupancy is in the mid-80% range, and includes Faunus Group International, which bumped up its occupancy to 18,000 square feet in a renewal this past October.

CMBS data firm Trepp noted on Tuesday that the property’s appraised value in 2006 was $113.5 million, but had fallen to $67 million in 2010.