HKS arranges $16M Fairfield deal

HKS Capital Partners has arranged $16.5 million in financing for a multi-residential property in Connecticut’s Fairfield County.
Jonathan Harrington, a partner and co-founder at HKS, arranged the loan from New York Community Bank on behalf of BRT General Corp with a term of seven years and a 3.5 percent rate.
The property, Brookview Commons, located at 30 Crosby Street in Danbury, Conn., was originally built as student housing for Western Connecticut State University.
The borrower will use this transitional loan, Harrington said, to further the process of converting the property from student to free-market housing.
“They were building it as a condo play originally,” explained Harrington. “We did the construction loan with Principal Life, and they were approached by the university in 2007.”
According to Harrington, the University originally wanted to buy the building, but due to the financial crisis, it softened on that idea.
Now, the 115-unit, 105,000 s/f building’s five stories have a mixed tenancy. There are free-market tenants on the top two floors and students on floors one through three.
The fact that BRT is well known, with a proven track record in the area, may have contributed to NYCB’s willingness to do the non-recourse loan for a building that has a student-housing component, according to Harrington.
“There are not very many banks that would do this,” added Harrington. BRT’s other rental properties include Spring Ridge at 124 Coalpit Hill Road and Park Ridge South at 28 Rose Lane.