Prudential Closes $139M Loan on DC Properties

ROCKVILLE, MD-Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. provided a five-year, fixed-rate $139-million loan on an 867,000-square-foot retail portfolio owned by locally based Federal Realty Investment Trust. The properties are four grocery-anchored stores in Arlington, Falls Church and Leesburg. Thomas Goodsite, a principal in Prudential Mortgage Capital’s Atlanta office arranged the loan. HFF’s Todd Stressenger and Mark Remington also participated in the deal.

The stores in the portfolio range from the recently constructed in 2002 to 42-year old assets. In Falls Church, Whole Foods supermarket anchors Idylwood Plaza and Giant Food supermarket anchors Loehmann’s Plaza. A Giant Food also anchors Leesburg Plaza in Leesburg, while in Arlington, Harris Teeter anchors Pentagon Row.

Goodsite cited the portfolio’s strength and Federal Realty’s experience as the reasons for providing the loan. Prudential did not return a call to GlobeSt.com in time for publication.

Headed by Donald Wood, Federal Realty Investment Trust has been steadily shoring up its financial position for the last several months. “We’ve completed our ’09 financing goals, with the $372-million unsecured term loan, and $139 million of secured financing,” Andrew Blocher, Federal Realty’s SVP of capital markets, said in an earnings call on August 5.

“Because of the success of those debt financings, we were sitting on $170 million of cash as of June 30th, which is more than sufficient to retire our 8.75% notes due in December.” Federal Realty tendered those notes in June, buying back 25% of them, leaving the company with $124 million due in December.

In May, Federal Realty closed a new $372-million unsecured term loan facility from several lenders, including Citicorp, Bank of America, Comercia Bank, Wells Fargo, Raymond James Bank and JP Morgan Chase.