Brookfield Properties scored a two-fer in Downtown Brooklyn.
Records show the commercial landlord received $150 million from Wells Fargo to refinance One MetroTech Center, a 23-story, 950,000-square-foot office building at 351 Jay Street.
Brookfield also closed on its sale of nearby 11 MetroTech Center, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cleveland-based Boyd Watterson Asset Management was in contract to buy 9 and 11 MetroTech Center for $310 million, The Real Deal reported in January. Brookfield first put the properties on the market in November.
Wells Fargo will take over the debt at One MetroTech from CMBS investors, who bought $200 million in bonds secured by that property and 11 MetroTech Center in 2019.
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The funds come as Brookfield rebrands the building at 351 Jay Street, along with 2 and 3 MetroTech Center, as Brooklyn Commons, pumping $50 million into renovating the properties with new lobbies, outdoor terraces and updated ground-floor retail.
The upgrades will attempt to better integrate the office park with its surrounding neighborhood. Built in the 1980s when crime was high, the development was designed to be inward-facing. The city government owns the land underneath the buildings and is also a tenant in them.
The largest tenants at One MetroTech Center include JPMorgan Chase, National Grid and the New York City Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications, which together take up 685,000 square feet.
JPMorgan is the building’s largest tenant, occupying 270,000 square feet on a lease that expires in June 2024, although the investment bank can extend the lease for an additional 10 years. This extension option also allows JPMorgan to return up to 50 percent of contiguous full-floor space at the time of renewal, according to ratings agency Morningstar.
Newmark’s Jordan Roeschlaub and Dustin Stolly, who brokered the financing for Brookfield, declined to comment. Brookfield and Wells Fargo did not immediately return a request for comment.