Martin Nussbaum's Slate Property Group is the latest commercial real estate firm to expand into the debt market.

Slate, which Nussbaum co-founded with David Schwartz (formerly of Madison Realty Capital) in 2014, has launched a commercial lending arm to be called SPG Capital Partners, The Real Deal reports. SPG has announced a goal to lend $500M in its first year of operation.

Slate joins an increasingly crowded field of New York development firms jumping into commercial lending, with heavy hitters such as Related Cos., RXR Realty, SL Green, Moinian Group and Kushner Cos. having launched debt operations in the last five years. Also in that group is MRC, which began lending operations in 2005 when Schwartz was still with the company.

SPG Capital Partners expects to pay for its loans mostly with internal funds, plus some additional capital from its partners. The group plans to only give out senior mortgages, Nussbaum told TRD, with its first such deal a $19M acquisition loan to investor Solomon Feder to purchase a development site in Long Island City.

SPG also intends to explore opportunities to provide construction, bridge, transitional, mezzanine and condo inventory loans worth up to 80% of a project's total value, according to TRD. Slate had previously focused on acquisitions, such as its $390M purchase of Midtown apartment building RiverTower in 2015.