Brookfield Puts Up $173M To Refinance Brookfield Place Tower
Brookfield Corp. is coughing up a bundle of cash to refinance a piece of its most valuable office property.
The Canadian investment giant has lined up an $800M CMBS loan for 225 Liberty St., a 44-story tower in the Brookfield Place office and retail complex, which sits a block from the World Trade Center.
Along with the mortgage, Brookfield plans to spend $172.5M of cash equity to refinance the 2.4M SF property's $900M CMBS loan, according to a KBRA report published Wednesday. The existing debt was originated in 2016 and matures on Friday, according to a 2023 S&P Global Ratings report.
Citi Real Estate Funding, JPMorgan Chase, The Bank of Nova Scotia and Wells Fargo are all lenders on the new fixed-rate, five-year mortgage for the Class-A tower in Battery Park City, with an expected interest rate of nearly 5.9%. The previous interest rate was 4.7%, according to the S&P report.
A recent appraisal valued the tower at $1.3B, according to KBRA. Brookfield Properties is the largest tenant, occupying 535K SF in the building, which was 90.1% leased as of November.
That figure doesn't include Saks Global, which signed a 233K SF office lease — 9.4% of the building — in 2014. The retailer filed for bankruptcy in January. Its lease expires in 2031, but it is delinquent on its rent and “is considered vacant,” according to the KBRA report.
A Brookfield Properties spokesperson didn't respond to Bisnow's request for comment.
The refinancing follows Brookfield extending its ground lease for the entire Brookfield Place complex until 2119 with the Battery Park City Authority, which owns the land underneath.
The 14-acre property, which also includes a sprawling retail complex and the office towers at 200 and 250 Vesey St., was developed in the late 1980s as the World Financial Center by Brookfield's predecessor, Olympia & York.
Brookfield pays the BPCA $7M a year through the ground lease, which increases by 10% every five years and by 20% after 16 years, according to KBRA.
Brookfield Place is the most valuable office property in the $1T portfolio of Brookfield Corp., valued at $4B, according to a 2025 investor presentation. Its other NYC holdings include the Manhattan West complex, valued at $3.3B, and the retail condo at 730 Fifth Ave., valued at $1.2B.
Those holdings don't include the assets owned by Brookfield Asset Management, the New York-based private equity company that owns 660 Fifth Ave. and a portion of The New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue. BAM is a separate company majority owned by Brookfield Corp.
Both entities have been tapping the CMBS market to refinance their Manhattan properties. Brookfield landed a $1.25B CMBS package at Five Manhattan West and a $1.3B loan at 660 Fifth Ave. last year.
