Cohen Finds Financing for 860,000 SF

EAST CHICAGO, IN-Cohen Financial recently secured a loan totaling $6 million in refinancing for 860,199 square feet of industrial in two separate properties here. Borrower Duke 4407 Land Holdings LLC obtained the fixed-rate loan at 45% loan-to-value, a five-year term with a 15-year amortization.

Don Trossman, managing director of Cohen’s Chicago office, says underwriting is difficult these days, but the lender, TCF Bank, was impressed with the borrower’s financial condition and good cash flow from the properties. The sites include 425 W. 151st St. and 4407 Railroad Ave., just off of Interstate 90, with several buildings with cranes and rail access. The 309,808-square-foot, two-building 151st Street property is 65% occupied. The three-complex Railroad Avenue site, a former World War II tank manufacturing property, is 80% occupied. Both are leased primarily by tenants in the steel industry for warehousing, distribution, manufacturing and mechanical engineering.

There’s five different buckets of available funding for financing today, Trossman says. These include government sponsored entities, life insurance companies, banks, pots looking for distressed assets and even the resurgence of CMBS. Each group lends slightly different than they did four-five years ago, he says, usually on a more conservative basis. But there is money out there, Trossman says. “It’s important to have cash flowing, deals aren’t made today on future leasing, you have to have properties that are proven.”