Durst To Reap $146M From Refinancing Times Square Office Tower
The Durst family is close to the finish line on a $1.3B mortgage that would generate a nearly $150M cash payout for the New York City real estate dynasty.
Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have agreed to originate the commercial mortgage-backed security for One Five One, a 1.8M SF skyscraper in Times Square that The Durst Organization developed in 1999, according to an S&P Global presale report for the loan.
Durst will extract more than $146M in equity as part of the deal for the 92%-leased building at 151 W. 42nd St., according to S&P. The loan carries a 6.1% interest rate.
One Five One, which used to be called 4 Times Square when it was Condé Nast's headquarters, now counts TikTok as its biggest tenant. The social media network's East Coast headquarters occupies 232K SF in a lease than runs until 2031. Green Street's Commercial Mortgage Alert first reported the deal.
Because Congress passed a law last year forcing TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, to divest or face a U.S. ban on the app — which was paused by executive order in January — $50M of the loan's proceeds will be put into a reserve fund in the event a ban takes place and the company defaults on the lease.
Nearly $1.1B of the CMBS debt is going to pay off the building's existing loan, while $23.3M is being placed in a tenant improvement reserve and $15M will go toward closing costs, according to S&P. The ratings agency gave the $719M “A” piece of the CMBS debt a preliminary AAA rating, citing Durst's “experience and financial strength.”
Durst owns a 13M SF commercial portfolio in the city as well as 4,000 apartments, with another 500 under construction, according to S&P. The company declined to comment on the CMBS loan, which is expected to close Aug. 19.
At One Five One, Durst spent $150M on renovations after Condé Nast and the building's other major tenant, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, vacated for One World Trade Center and Manhattan West, respectively. The work included turning Condé Nast's famed Frank Gehry-designed cafeteria into an amenity space with a Durst-run restaurant, Well& by Durst.
The property is ground-leased from New York City, and Durst has the option to purchase it in 2027. In-place rents in the tower average $116 per SF. Its appraised value is roughly $2.3B, based on the loan-to-value ratio.
Other tenants in the building include Nasdaq, Venable and BMO Capital Markets. It also has more than 72K SF of retail, which holds H&M's U.S. flagship store, plus digital signage overlooking Broadway.
Durst joins some of its NYC peers in tapping a suddenly robust CMBS market for Class-A Manhattan office towers. RFR, Tishman Speyer and Ivanhoé Cambridge have each landed $1B-plus refinancing deals on the CMBS market this year. Overall, lenders issued $59.5B of CMBS loans in the first half of 2025, the most in more than 15 years, according to Trepp.
