Gary Barnett secured refinancing for the first phase of his Hudson Piers project that he’s betting will help turn Yonkers into New York City’s next residential frontier.
NewBridge Lending and Meridian Capital provided Extell Development with $185 million to refinance the first phase of the 1,400-unit luxury development, replacing a commercial loan from Wells Fargo and a mezzanine loan.
The first phase comprises two seven-story, mixed-use buildings known as Piers 3 and 4, located at 45 and 55 Riverside Drive, with 369 luxury apartments, ground-floor retail, and parking. Pier 3 has already finished construction and is currently leasing apartments starting at around $2,000 for studios and $5,000 for three bedrooms, while Pier 4 is still being built. The development, formerly known as Point Street Landing, started welcoming tenants last year and will ultimately include 1,400 apartments and four public parks. Each of the project’s six buildings are expected to open within a year of each other.
Hudson Piers is the latest in an ongoing redevelopment of the formerly industrial coast of downtown Yonkers set against the Hudson River opposite the Palisades. The area will soon feature a 1.5-mile-long riverfront promenade backed by buildings from developers RXR, Rose Associates, and AvalonBay.
The Yonkers development has benefited from generous tax breaks from the city government, which awarded Extell $21 million in tax breaks for the project.
“We’re talking about an administration that’s very pro housing,” said Moshe Botnick, who leads development at Extell.
Though Extell’s bread and butter remains New York City, the developer has recently pursued properties outside the city, including nearby Pier Village in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and even far-flung developments in Park City, Utah.
“We’re really opportunistic in general,” said Botnick. “We don’t have a specific rubric of what we look for.”
Botnick, however, sees Yonkers as an extension of Extell’s New York City offerings.
“Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen, already, places like Hoboken, Jersey City, Bushwick, Dumbo — all of these places become popular, and this is really the natural next step in that same story,” Botnick said of Yonkers.
The deal marks the third financing Meridian Capital has arranged through NewBridge Lending, a bridge-to-agency platform founded by former Wells Fargo executive Stender Sweeney last year. The transaction was placed by Meridian’s Zev Karpel, Elliot Birnbaum and Ariel Taieb in what Karpel described as a “highly structured transaction with several moving parts.”
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