Owner Of Silver Spring's Ellsworth Place Delinquent On $69M Loan

The owner of the central urban Silver Spring mall Ellsworth Place hasn’t paid its loan in two months as the property's income has dwindled.

GBT Realty Corp., the owner of the 342K SF property on Colesville Road, is delinquent on a $69M loan that it obtained and securitized in 2018 to purchase the mall, according to the Morningstar Credit database. 

Ellsworth Place has been in special servicing since October, as its debt service coverage ratio approached 1, meaning it almost doesn't have enough cash flow to pay its interest. The DSCR for net cash flow was 1.22 in mid-2025, and since then, T.J. Maxx has shuttered.

GBT doesn’t plan to put up equity “to address outstanding payables,” according to the latest servicer commentary last month. Morningstar Credit Head of CRE Analytics David Putro said this means it won’t put up its own money to help cover the loan payments, which is “not uncommon.”

GBT Chief Operating Officer Trey Culpepper declined to comment. 

The property’s net cash flow, net operating income and debt service coverage ratio have all been trending downward since the end of 2018.

“It’s basically been running south of the underwritten cash flow for the entire term of the loan,” Putro said.

“So the difference between the cash flow that is thrown off and the debt service, that margin was narrowing over time.”

GBT’s last payment was in November, according to Morningstar.

The mall’s net cash flow for 2025 was estimated to come in at $5.4M, according to Morningstar Credit, nearly $1M lower than at the end of 2018, when occupancy was also 95%.

That is likely indicative of GBT taking in tenants that pay lower rents, Putro said.

“It's actually higher occupancy but lower cash flow now, which leads me to believe that they were, from a foot traffic perspective, keeping it very active by getting tenants in at lower rents,” he said.

The mall has replaced a 13K SF Forever 21 that closed in 2019 with a food hall whose vendors could be paying lower rental rates than the fast-fashion giant. 

GBT purchased Ellsworth Place in 2018 for $92M. It has planned to redevelop the mall, receiving Montgomery County approval in 2024 to build a 450-unit residential tower, but the status of those plans is now unclear. 

The mall is anchored by a 65K SF Burlington. That lease is expiring at the end of this month, though it appears to still be open.

Outback Steakhouse, which opened in the spring of 2024, closed in October, and T.J. Maxx closed in early January after a decade at the mall. 

While its stewardship of Ellsworth Place is uncertain, GBT announced on Wednesday that it plans to deploy $1.3B to develop build-to-suit retail properties and acquire shopping centers over the next year and a half. The Tennessee-based company is led by Brian Dawson, who formerly worked on The Wharf in D.C. while at Hoffman & Associates and JLL. 

The situation at Ellsworth Place fits into a national trend of the mall sector bifurcating into winners and losers, Putro said. 

“We’ve seen this phenomenon all over the country and malls of all sizes, with borrowers of all sizes,” he said.