Meridian Capital Group, a New York-based real estate finance company, has arranged $117 million in financing for the construction of The Residences at Wilshire Curson a 20-story, 285-unit apartment building at 640 S. Curson Ave. on the Miracle Mile.
The multifamily property is owned by J.H. Snyder Co. and OGO Associates. The project is also slated to have an underground two-level parking garage with 410 spaces, a gym, rooftop pool and other amenities.
Seth Grossman, senior managing director at Meridian Capital Group, along with vice presidents Steve Edelstein and Jackie Tran, negotiated the five-year, non-recourse construction loan. The loan was provided by CapitalSource – a Chevy Chase, Md.-based commercial lender that is a division of Century City headquartered Pacific Western Bank – and features full-term, interest-only payments, Meridian said.
“Non-recourse loans bids for this project were as competitive as I’ve seen in my career for ground-up construction,” Grossman said in a statement.
In May, Meridian arranged a separate 10-year, $105 million loan for a J.H. Snyder Co. affiliate to refinance the SAG-AFTRA Building at 5757 Wilshire Blvd. on the Miracle Mile.
CBRE Gets Garland
CBRE Group Inc. has announced the hiring of Sarah Garland, formerly of PNC Bank, as director of capital markets and affordable housing production at CBRE Affordable Housing.
Garland will work out of CBRE’s global headquarters at 400 S. Hope St. downtown.
She will be responsible for supporting the origination of affordable and workforce housing projects financed by debt.
Garland previously worked as a senior vice president at PNC since 2013. She focused on affordable housing debt production while there. Prior to PNC, she worked as Fannie Mae’s national director of multifamily affordable housing. She is a graduate of UCLA.
CBRE Affordable Housing is a specialty unit within CBRE that offers services for clients in the affordable housing industry, including sales, debt, structure finance and investment banking.
Jams Adds Global Arbitration Unit
The Gas Company Tower, located at 555 W. 5th St. downtown, will soon become a destination for multinational corporations who want to keep their disputes out of the public eye.
Jams Inc., the Irvine-based arbitration and mediation shop, is opening two international arbitration centers – one in Los Angeles, the other at the New York Times Building in Manhattan.
The expansion comes before an impending change in state law will allow foreign and out-of-state lawyers to participate in arbitration proceedings without a licensed California attorney by their side.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill, SB 766, into law July 18 and it takes effect Jan. 1, 2019.
“It happened to dovetail with our existing strategy to expand our presence in cross- border arbitration,” said Chris Poole, the president and chief executive officer of Jams.
Global litigation involving big California companies such as Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Netflix Inc. and Walt Disney Co. spotlighted the need for more permissive arbitration law, according to Poole, and the California State Legislature acted to allow attorneys without a state bar license to handle arbitration matters here.
Before SB 766’s passage, local companies involved in international arbitration were often forced to take their cases to New York, London, Brussels, Singapore or Hong Kong, Poole said.
“A lot of attorneys engaged in international arbitration market thought the state was really behind (the times),” Poole said.
Jams leases 30,000 square feet at the Gas Company Tower and has a suite on the 33rd floor of the building. The international arbitration center will feature large LCD monitors and high-quality video conference, translation booth, dedicated phone lines for case intake across time zones and other amenities.
Although some of the state’s largest companies are located in the Bay Area, Poole said that Jams’s San Francisco office is towards the end of its lease, adding uncertainty to the equation.
“San Francisco would be high on our list of next places to do that,” Poole said. “We have some decisions to make towards the timing of that.”
Staff reporter Ciaran McEvoy can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 556-8337.
