Brookfield Refinances $59M Debt on DTLA Retail Center

Brookfield is trying to hold onto a mall in Downtown L.A., just months after it defaulted on $784 million in loans connected to two of its office towers, The Real Deal has learned.

The alternative investment firm has scored a three-year extension refinancing on a $58.5 million loan on Figat7th — a 316,000-square-foot retail center at 735 South Figueroa Street.

MetLife provided the loan, which originated in 2018 with a fixed interest rate of 3.88 percent, according to filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The loan was originally set to mature in March, but Brookfield obtained a one-month extension while it tried to secure a longer deal.

If Brookfield had not been able to score the extension, MetLife could have foreclosed on the property, among other remedies, Brookfield said in its 2022 annual report.

A representative for Brookfield confirmed the loan. MetLife declined to comment.

Brookfield built the center in 2013, right next to its 777 Tower — one of the two buildings the investment firm defaulted on in February.

At the end of 2022, Brookfield reeled in $7.3 million in annual rent from the mall, which was about 90 percent leased, financial filings show. The mall charges tenants — which currently include Sephora, Nordstrom Rack and Target — about $25.60 per square foot a year on average.

Brookfield’s extension is a bright spot for the firm’s DTLA operations in recent months. After defaulting on both 777 Tower and the Gas Company Tower — a result of rising interest rates and high vacancy rates — the latter transferred into the hands of a court-appointed receiver, who has the power to sell the property.

Brookfield also wrote down the value of its 45-story office tower at 355 South Grand Avenue — the South Tower of the Wells Fargo Center — by $111 million, blaming the impacts of L.A.’s new transfer taxes, according to its annual report.

The entity that owns about 7.6 million square feet of Brookfield’s DTLA office buildings and Figat7th also filed to delist from the New York Stock Exchange, after its shares neared the exchange’s $1 minimum price requirement.