Kensington Portfolio Owner Delinquent On 1-Year-Old CMBS Loan As Checks Bounce
A Philly multifamily portfolio is showing signs of financial distress one year after its owner obtained a CMBS loan.
The $46M, fixed-rate loan Barclays originated for GM Holdings President George Manosis in March 2025 has been transferred to special servicing after multiple delinquencies, according to CMBS monitoring platform Morningstar Credit.
The GM Holdings portfolio includes 187 market-rate units and nearly 27K SF of ground-floor retail across eight buildings within a few blocks of Harrowgate Park and the Tioga stop on the Market-Frankford Line.
“The sponsor acquired the individual properties as older industrial buildings or vacant land and redeveloped the assets to their current [multifamily] use,” according to servicer commentary from Argentic Services Co. posted on Morningstar's platform.
The portfolio entered special servicing April 10. This came after the servicer reported in January that payments were coming via individual $25K checks, some of which were bouncing.
Philadelphia-based Harrowgate Heights Properties, which has the portfolio listed on its website and shares a phone number with GM, didn't respond to Bisnow’s requests for comment.
Morningstar Head of Analytics David Putro said in an email to Bisnow that he wasn’t sure what to make of the situation, given that the properties are collectively 91% occupied, just 40 basis points below the portfolio’s underwritten occupancy. The portfolio also has a debt service coverage ratio of 1.31.
“I’ve honestly never seen this mentioned before in servicer commentary,” he said of the bouncing checks made in small, consistent increments. “So suffice it to say that it’s unusual.”
While Kensington has become synonymous with the opioid crisis on social media, parts of the neighborhood have been redeveloped in recent years, particularly the southern blocks near Fishtown and Northern Liberties.
This portfolio is entirely on the north end of Kensington, which has seen less of that activity. But Putro said he doesn’t believe the neighborhood is a major factor, given the portfolio’s strong occupancy.
“I kind of doubt that the locations of the properties is playing a role,” he said.
“This could be an administrative issue with the borrower — but honestly, not enough transparency to tell why payments are late,” Putro added.
These are the properties in the portfolio:
- 3450 J St. — 39 units
- 1810 E. Venango St. — 36 units
- 3701 Frankford Ave. — 33 units
- 3460 J St. — 24 units
- 1825 E. Atlantic St. — 24 units
- 1822 E. Glenwood Ave. — 14 units
- 1849 E. Venango St. — 12 units
- 1817 E. Venango St. — five units
