Gantry, the largest independent commercial mortgage banking firm in the U.S., has secured a $63.5 million permanent loan and $21 million preferred equity commitment for the acquisition of Topa Financial Center (Topa) in Honolulu, Hawaii. The class A property’s two 20-story office towers and connecting retail concourse encompass 483,776 rentable square feet, strategically located in the city’s downtown business district. The towers are one of the most recognizable landmarks on the Honolulu skyline overlooking Honolulu Harbor.

Gantry’s George Mitsanas, Principal, and Keegan Bridges, Associate, with the firm’s Los Angeles (El Segundo) production office were retained by the seller to structure the complex financing for the buyer, Hawai’i-based real estate developer Avalon Group. Financing for the transaction included negotiating a transfer of the remaining term of seller’s existing permanent loan, residing with one of Gantry’s long-time correspondent insurance company lenders. This effort maintains an attractive fixed rate for the acquisition well beneath current market rates.

Gantry was also instrumental in structuring a $21M preferred equity position for the seller, Dusenberg Group. Avalon Group is thus well capitalized for a strategic center-wide repositioning program. Gantry will be the loan servicer for both the first trust deed loan and preferred equity.

According to Gantry’s George Mitsanas, “Gantry’s role as a trusted financial advisor often tasks us to creatively align a complex capital stack to achieve clients’ investment goals. When we get creative, it requires copious underwriting to identify and align the right debt and equity structures. By remaining involved in the transaction as a preferred equity provider, the seller and long-time client will remain vested in the goals for the asset established by Avalon Group, a new client through this process that will benefit from the strategic loan transfer arranged by our team that locked an interest rate significantly below current market norms, a huge win for the project team.”

This is the second purchase money capital structure arranged for this project by George Mitsanas. In 2001 he secured a $100M purchase money loan for Duesenberg to acquire the subject property from a mainland Japanese institutional seller. “We pride ourselves on developing long term relationships with our clients. Throughout the years we have sourced and serviced various insurance company loans for the subject property. Our holistic approach to financing strategic commercial real estate investments will always seek to optimize outcomes at each point of the investment cycle to set the foundation for achieving desired asset performance goals.”