Weeks after scoring a $480 million refi at its Dumbo office campus, Aby Rosen’s RFR and Kushner Companies have sold a stake in 81 Prospect Street, one of the four properties in the joint venture’s office portfolio.
Pearl Realty Management developer Jack Guttman purchased the stake for $33.8 million, though the size of it is unclear, Crain’s reported.
RFR and Kushner acquired the property from Invesco Real Estate for $50.6 million in 2017. The nine-story, 95,000-square-foot property commands asking rents from $58 to $71 per square foot, according to CoStar.
RFR and Kushner did not respond to requests for comment from Crain’s, while Guttman couldn’t be reached.
Last month, Kushner and RFR closed on a $480 million refinancing package to rescue the four-building portfolio, which also includes 55 Prospect Street, 117 Adams Street and 77 Sands Street. The four-year extension arrived several months after the landlords defaulted on a $180 million CMBS loan.
They had also struggled to repay a B note of $145 million, plus two mezzanine loans from Korean lenders for $80 million and $75 million. The landlords sought a $435 million refi reported in April 2023, but came up empty-handed at the time.
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The value of the Dumbo portfolio value was reported to be $207 million last year, down from $640 million five years earlier.
Occupancy, meanwhile, had fallen to 73 percent from 94 percent in 2018. Tenants in the complex include Etsy, Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools and retailers such as F45 Fitness, Bluestone Lane and Randolph Beer.
Kushner and RFR kicked in an unknown but probably substantial amount of equity to make the massive refi work.
The refinancing isn’t the only good news RFR and Kushner have received in Dumbo. WeWork, despite its lengthy bankruptcy proceedings, decided to stay at 77 Sands Street after initially planning to reject its lease there, though the co-working company did shed some of its space.