Prudential Mortgage Closes $355M Loan for Douglas Emmett Portfolio

July 26, 2011
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

100 Wilshire,
Santa Monica

Prudential Mortgage Capital Co., acting through its general account, has seen fit to provide Douglas Emmett Inc. with a $355 first mortgage, with the REIT’s 1-million-square-foot commercial-property portfolio serving as collateral.

“Part of choosing a financing partner is seeking a lender that is consistent and reliable and can provide superior quality service throughout the loan term,” William Kamer, CFO of Douglas Emmett, said. “Prudential Mortgage Capital Company is that partner.”

Located in Los Angeles and Honolulu, the portfolio encompasses eight medical, retail and office properties, including the 248,000 square-foot office tower at 100 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica, the premier Westside beach submarket of Los Angeles.

As is the case with other lenders today, Prudential Mortgage, the commercial lending arm of Prudential Financial Inc., is not doling out financing indiscriminately; it had a few good reasons for extending the seven-year loan to Douglas Emmett. “What made this transaction attractive for us was the expertise, reputation and strength of Douglas Emmett, broad tenant diversification and the property type and geographic diversification that the eight cross-collateralized properties supporting the loan provided,” Frederick van Overbeek, principal with Prudential Mortgage, told Commercial Property Executive.

The advantages of the supply-constrained Westside L.A. and Honolulu markets also served as a magnet. In particular, in Santa Monica, home to the iconic 21-story 100 Wilshire, the limited supply coupled with increasing demand is reinvigorating the submarket. Buoyed by positive absorption in four of the last five quarters, property owners are beginning to hike up asking rents, according to a second quarter report by commercial real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis Co.

The loan Prudential Mortgage supplied for Douglas Emmett comes with a 4.14 percent annual fixed interest rate and a maturity date of August 5, 2018.

The lender has been actively furnishing financing to borrowers with assets that meet the same criteria by which it judged Douglas Emmett’s portfolio. Prudential Mortgage recently closed a $106.5 million, seven-year loan for The Rockefeller Group’s financing of the 292,000-square-foot office building at 1101 K St. in Washington, D.C. And it came through for Saul Centers with a $125 million, 15-year loan providing construction take-out financing for Clarendon Center, a new 402,000 square-foot mixed-use development in Arlington, Va., just minutes from Washington, D.C.