Bentley Zhao’s New Empire Real Estate Development landed a $45 million construction loan for its Long Island City condominium project from Slate Property Group’s new lending arm, SPG Capital Partners.
New Empire plans to build a 115,000-square-foot project at 37-14 34th Street. The company is an extremely active developer throughout the city, with condo projects on the Lower East Side, Midtown West, and several in Brooklyn.
Martin Nussbaum and David Schwartz’s Slate launched its lending platform in February, with a goal of issuing $500 million in loans this year. With the latest deal, it has issued $150 million in loans, the company said, including a condo inventory loan for $87 million and another $19 million loan to finance Solomon Feder’s acquisition of a development site at 45-57 Davis Street, also in Long Island City.
In March, Slate bought a nearby development site at 37-11 30th Street for $33.3 million. The company is close to a deal to buy the Biltmore apartment tower in Manhattan with GreenOak Real Estate for more than $250 million. GreenOak is also Slate’s capital partner on RiverTower, a large rental building in Midtown East.