Silverstein's Salvation & Blackstone's Gigawatt Game

Will AmEx Swipe Right On Silverstein?

Larry Silverstein has spent the twilight of his life obsessed with one mission: get the damn thing built. 2 World Trade Center, the waiting for Godot piece of the WTC puzzle, nearly saw the light in ‘15, when Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. & 21st Century Fox signed a nonbinding LOI for 1.3M sf, but at the last minute Murdoch decided to stay put in Midtown.

After years of sputtering since then, we now have news of a possible resurrection.

Windy City Happy Hour: This Tuesday 🍾 

Chicago is a proper American city, with all the requisite trappings of greatness: architecture, waterfront, sport, music, food (minus pizza), skullduggery, high & low finance, and of course, a major real estate scene. I confess to not knowing it as well as I’d like, so I’m changing that: I’ll be in town to drink some bourbon this weekend, and then on Tuesday 9/10 I’ll be co-hosting a Happy Hour in River North w/ the inimitable Iman Jalali. Please join us if you’re in the region for some drinks, bites, and CRE spice. RSVPs help us out w/ the logistics a ton, so please do so here.

Silverstein (Cont.)

American Express 💳️ is in talks to anchor the proposed skyscraper, per TRD, and is in an “exclusive negotiating period” w/ the developer. AmEx could still opt to pick another new home, or even stay put at its current digs at Brookfield Place. Also, AmEx may want to own its space, a la KKR, Time Warner & Wells Fargo at Hudson Yards - def. read Lois’ full dispatch if you want to understand just how intricate things get in these megatenant deals.

AmEx tapped CushWake to figure out its office sitch in ‘22, and the brokerage and AmEx’s Paul Gioioso are hashing things out w/ Larry and his rep, CBRE leasing 🐐 Mary Ann Tighe. The negotiating dynamic is fascinating: AmEx has no real deadline to move – it owns its space at 200 Vesey. The 93-year-old Larry, however, one source told Lois, “wants [the tower] done yesterday and wants it started in his lifetime.” You might even say he won’t leave home without it 🙏 

Bonus: Check out this cinematic doc from the B1M on the tower’s long quest for a suitor – we make a cameo too

Silber Surfer 🏄️ 

On Wednesday, the Lynd Group, a multifamily investment and management firm, sent out a jubilant announcement: It had won the assignment to reposition a whopping 11K-unit portfolio that it said “became distressed due to headwinds in the commercial real estate market.”

“We are seeing a lot of value being eroded due to poor on-site execution,” said Lynd CEO A. David Lynd. “This is why we are in business.” Lynd estimated the value of the portfolio at $800M.

But these weren’t your average headwinds: the portfolio Lynd won, sources confirmed to The Promote, was formerly controlled by Moshe “Mark” Silber, the convicted mortgage fraudster who is Barry Drillman’s co-conspirator on a scheme involving a Cincinnati property. In July, Silber, of Rhodium Capital Advisors, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and some of the details in the complaint are quite special: (Silber: “If there is no price anywhere then it’s good. Please make sure [Madison] knows that one mistake kills the deal…”)

Lynd declined to comment. The Promote’s understanding is that the firm was hired by bondholders on the portfolio to prep it for an eventual sale.

Blackstone Loads Up

We are yet to fully grasp how the data-center boom is going to warp our built environment, and here’s a reminder via Blackstone: The investment firm’s QTS division, which it bought for $10B in ‘21 and has spent billions more to position as the firm’s portal into the AI economy, just filed plans for a gigawatt-scale complex in the NE of England. The 10-building campus in Blyth, per Data Center Dynamics, will span 5.8M sf and have a staggering 1.1GW capacity – for context (h/t @roelof), “the entire IT load for ALL data centers in the London area is 900MW.” The site was once slated for a car battery factory ⚡️ for Britishvolt, but that company went kaput, and QTS got in the mix this spring. At the time, the local Council leader said the project would lead to a $12.5B investment in the area and directly create 1,600 jobs. TBD on that. With all this nutty growth – there are 7K+ data centers in the global pipeline, nearly double the ‘15 figure – comes very strong concerns about power. 🔌 

Meanwhile, the frenzy continues back stateside, with investors pushing for increasingly large projects with increasingly large capital requirements. A Blue Owl-led syndicate 🦉 is looking to score $2.2B in debt for a 206 MW project in Texas, per CMA – exact location TBD. Newmark is running point on the debt hunt for the 1M sf project, which will be structured as a leasehold interest w/ another party owning the fee. Blue Owl is also partnering w/ 2 data center firms on a JV to build data centers for CoreWeave, an AI chip startup that recently landed $7.5B in a fascinating private-debt financing round led by…Blackstone. It’s a pretty incestuous world.

Chatter that Matters: Brickman

David Brickman, the former CEO of Freddie Mac and the founding chief exec of Meridian/Barings JV lender NewPoint who “stepped down effective immediately” from NewPoint 🤷 last month, is making moves: He has been having conversations with Greystone, per sources: I’m fuzzy on the deets of the talks, but if Brickman were to go there he’d be surrounded by familiar faces: the Stephen Rosenberg-led firm has been looking to ramp up its agency-lending business in recent months, and hired ex-Meridian rainmaker Shaya Ackerman in May. 🧱 

By Jorge He’s Got It

The Miami branded-condo playbook of intense pre-sales followed by a monster construction loan is one of the key stories of this cycle. The latest: Jorge Perez’s Related Group & Integra Investments have landed $527M in construction debt for the planned 50-story St. Regis in Brickell. The 152-unit tower, designed by Robert A.M. Stern, is already 60+% sold. The lender, Tyko Capital, is a JV between prolific debt broker Adi Chugh (Surya) and billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management. Tyko has been on a ripper of a run over the past 18 months: $565M for Vlad Doronin’s 830 Brickell; the mezz for Witkoff/Blavatnik’s One High Line, and many other biggies – we’ll have more on them soon.

But man, Miami: one whopper debt package after another. Mast Capital scored $600M for Cipriani Residences earlier this year; PMG got a record $668M for the Waldorf Miami this summer, etc. etc.   

Quickies

• Rabbilatory risk 🎥 : How the Rebbe’s new pricing controls will shake up the market in Hasidic stronghold Kiryas Joel (if you want more deets, start here)

• Shvo’s problems compound: Mandarin Oriental LA condos being offered in bulk sale by lender (more on Shvo’s troubles here)

• 2 of NYC’s biggest multi landlord trade groups merge 🗽

• Bren’s Irvine Cos. sells San Diego office tower for $86/foot 

• City of Irvine paying $880/foot for rec development 😆 

• Another Meridian lad —> CBRE: Seidman joins Hammer

• Trustee seeks to throw out Nir Meir’s bankruptcy (for a deeper dive into Meir’s madness, read our special dispatch or watch our short doc)

Unquotable Quotes