Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Property Trust is playing a major role in the industrial market once again, this time as a lender.
Starwood lent $500 million to Dune Real Estate Partners and Robert Martin Company to refinance the partnership’s 42-asset industrial portfolio in New York’s Westchester County, the Commercial Observer reported. The portfolio spans 2.4 million square feet in the New York City-adjacent market.
The loan follows a $455 million recapitalization of the portfolio four years ago from Bank of America, which also brought the Dune affiliate into the fold. A JLL Capital Markets team including Christopher Peck, Peter Rotchford and Christopher Pratt arranged the loan.
None of the three parties directly involved in the deal responded to requests for comment from the outlet, though Rotchford said in a statement that the properties demonstrated “remarkable resilience through multiple economic cycles” and that he anticipated “continued outperformance.”
“The financing supports the sponsors’ continued value-creation strategy following their recapitalization of the portfolio in December 2021,” Rotchford said.
Properties include the Mid-Westchester Executive Park in Hawthorne, South Westchester Executive Park in Yonkers and Cross Westchester Executive Park in Elmsford.
Sternlicht and his various entities have not shied away from the industrial market. A few months ago, Starwood Capital Group purchased a 38-unit portfolio of last-mile warehouses from Goldman Sachs and Dalfen Industrial for $685 million.
Sternlicht’s firm also teamed with Onyx Equities to acquire a 10-property portfolio of light industrial assets near John F. Kennedy International Airport for $146 million in 2023. That deal is believed to represent a record at the time for the most expensive industrial portfolio sale in Long Island history.
At the end of the second quarter, there was 2.2 million square feet of industrial space available for lease, according to a market report from Lincoln Property Company. The weighted average asking rent was just shy of $25 per square foot.— Holden Walter-Warner
Read more
