1 | January 25, 2013

In This Issue

3 Dermot Company’s 21 West End avenue Funded

3 upgraded retail Centers Get Lenders’ attention (and Money)

5 uBS Finances Purchase of Cuny’s Headquarters

7 Gershwin Hotel to Get new Look, new Loan

7 The return of CMBS

9 HFF Secures $61.6 Million for Multi- Housing Project in arizona

11 $85 M. Pool of Loans on Offer from First Financial network

“The last couple of years have been pretty good, but

I think 2013 is going to be even more successful.

With interest rates so low, I think that forward

commitments are a lot more in fashion right now.”

—Gretchen WilcoxFrom Q&A on page 13

The Insider’s Weekly Guide to the Commercial Mortgage Industry

New York Community Bank has provid-ed loans for a total of $116.4 million to finance the Parkoff Organization’s acquisition of a portfolio of 10 properties with retail located in Manhattan and the Bronx, Mortgage Observer Weekly has learned. Dermot Property Asso-ciates sold the 10 properties for $158 million.

The buildings purchased by Parkoff were initially marketed as a package together with four buildings located in Queens, but it was determined that splitting the group up was in the best interest of both the buyers and the seller. In the end, Douglaston Real-ty bought the Queens properties for $32.5 million.

“The guy in the Bronx and Manhat-tan didn’t want the Queens buildings, and the guy in Queens didn’t want the Bronx and Manhattan buildings, so it paid to split them up,” said Aar-on Jungreis, president of Rosewood Realty Group, who represented the buyers.

Mr. Jungreis confirmed that the deal was one of the many transactions that were rushed to close by the end of the year in or-der to avoid the increase in capital gains taxes. “We didn’t have much time to get the deal done before the end of the year, and be-cause both the buyers and the seller were very efficient, we got this done in record

time,” Mr. Jungreis said.The properties in Manhattan are: 201 and

207 West 11th Street, two six-story build-ings in the West Village with a total of 67 resi-dential units and five commercial units; 229 East 12th Street, a seven-story elevator building in the East Village with 36 residen-tial units; and 71 and 81 Orchard Street, two six-story walk-up buildings with a total of 60 residential and seven commercial units locat-ed on the Lower East Side.

The purchase of the Bronx part of the port-folio was financed with $54.4 mil-lion in loans provided by New York Community Bank. The $67.9 mil-lion deal was the largest residen-tial sale closed in the Bronx in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a report from Massey Knakal.

The properties at 2131 and 2132 Wallace Avenue, located in the Pel-ham Parkway neighborhood of the Bronx, are six-story elevator buildings totaling 344 residential units and 18 commercial units, and 2146, 2162 and 2182 Barnes Avenue, located on the east side of Barnes Avenue between Lydig Avenue and Pel-ham Parkway South—six-story elevator buildings with a total of 211 residential units.

NYCB Finances Acquisition of Portfolio for $116.4 Million

Goldman Sachs Provides $300 M. on St. John’s Center

Goldman Sachs has provided $300 million to finance the purchase of the St. John’s Center, an approximately 1.2-mil-lion-square-foot office building on the West Side of Manhattan, Mortgage Ob-server Weekly has learned. Located at 340 West Street, the property stretches over 800 feet along the West Side Highway be-tween Soho and the Meatpacking District.

A joint venture between Fortress In-vestment Group, Atlas Capital Group and Westbrook Partners, which al-ready owned 49.9 percent of the property, bought the controlling 50.1 percent stake from Eugene Grant, the president of New

See Goldman Sachs... on page 3

The LEAD

2 | January 25, 2013

Columbus Square500,000 Sq. Ft. Retail Condominium Portfolio

$280,000,000 New York, NY

B&L Portfolio25 Buildings Multifamily Portfolio

$160,000,000New York, NY

350 Park Avenue585,000 Sq. Ft. Office Property

$300,000,000New York, NY

568 Broadway350,000 Sq. Ft. Office Property

$200,000,000New York, NY

1 Battery Park Plaza New York, NY 10004 | 212-972-3600 | www.meridiancapital.com

In 2012, Meridian proudly advised on financing for the following transactions:

220 Water Street134 Units Multifamily Property

$52,000,000Brooklyn, NY

Harrison Station275 Units Multifamily Property

$49,950,000 Harrison, NJ

West 14th Street61,000 Sq. Ft. Mixed-Use Property

$55,000,000New York, NY

Eastgate Tower186 Rooms Hotel Property

$50,000,000New York, NY

Steelworks Lofts110,000 Sq. Ft. Mixed-Use Property

$28,400,000 Brooklyn, NY

Lexington Avenue10,130 Sq. Ft. Retail Property

$17,700,000 New York, NY

The Berkshire93 Units Multifamily Property

$33,000,000Hoboken, NJ

Kings Highway60,800 Sq. Ft. Retail Property

$20,200,000Brooklyn, NY

MORTGAGE OBSERVER WEEKLY - Jan 25, 2013 - 2012 YE.indd 1 1/23/13 4:44 PM

3 | January 25, 2013

Festival Plaza

York-based real estate investment and devel-opment firm Eugene M. Grant & Company. The total amount of the transaction was $540 million, according to public records.

The building has the potential to be up-graded and remarketed. Currently, the larg-est tenant, Bloomberg LP, occupies 372,382 square feet there for a data center. Only 38 percent of the property was occupied as of December 2012, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. The building has 290,000 square feet of air rights, which could be used to develop a hotel, modern offices or residen-tial apartments.

Goldman Sachs... continued from page 1

Capital One Bank has provided a $36 million loan for Festival Plaza, a grocery-anchored retail center in Edison, N.J., that has been expanded and rebranded over the last three years. The loan is in keep-ing with a trend of an increasing number of refinancings of renovated regional re-tail centers, which analysts attribute to the resurgence of the CMBS market and lenders’ interests in higher yields from upgraded properties.

Investment volumes for regional malls more than doubled in 2012 compared with the previous year, to approximately $10 bil-lion, according to a November report by Real Capital Analytics. The migration of capital to secondary markets, according to the re-port, was “facilitated by a resurgent CMBS market.” CMBS financing accounts for 60 percent of all financings of anchored retail strips over the past year, the report stated.

In one such deal, the Macerich Compa-ny recently announced the closing of five loans for over $1.3 billion, including the $600 million refinancing of the Queens Center, at 58-06 92nd Street in Queens. The average interest rate on these loans was 3.33 percent, and the average maturi-ty was 8.2 years.

On the other hand, Festival Plaza was re-financed by a bank and not CMBS, pointed

out James Gunning, head of the N.J. re-gion of CBRE capital markets and debt and equity, who secured the loan with colleague Donna Falzarano. He explained that grocery-anchored retail centers are very attractive for banks and insurance compa-nies. In this case, Capital One refinanced an acquisition and construction loan that has a five-year term and a floating interest rate at 275 basis points over Libor.

Lenders seem to appreciate borrowers’ efforts in redeveloping their properties. The upgrading of properties can lead to yields that are more appealing than those of new developments. Festival Plaza’s owners, a partnership of Lubert Adler and McCa-rthy Properties, purchased the center in May 2008 and secured a lease with H Mart, the nation’s premier Asian grocer. “They took an old shopping center with a lot of not-very-desirable tenants and then replaced them with very appealing tenants, mainly Asian-inspired, making the center an Asian destination,” Mr. Gunning said.

Located at 1711-1783 Route 27 in Edi-son, N.J., the 151,429-square-foot site cen-ter has become a retail destination over the course of the last three years. It draws from an affluent, densely populated trade area and has a diverse tenant roster of mainly Asian-inspired retailers.

Upgraded Retail Centers Get Lenders’ Attention (and Money)

Dermot Company’s 21 West End Avenue Funded

The Dermot Company and partner the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust have broken ground on a 43-sto-ry, 616-unit residential tower—21 West End Avenue. Construction kicked off thanks to a $278 million bond enhance-ment that was split by Bank of Ameri-ca and Capital One Bank.

Bradley Dubeck, a senior cli-ent manager at Bank of America, told Mortgage Observer Weekly that the deal closed in December 2012, suc-cessfully fulfilling the New York State Housing Agency’s desire to have it wrapped up by the end of the year.

“Concurrent with our process to close the construction loan, we brought in several other banks,” he explained, noting that these included Helaba, Capital One and TD Bank. “The ma-jor equity in the transaction was the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust.”

Bank of America has funded a num-ber of projects for the Dermot Co., including 29 Flatbush—a 327-unit residential building being construct-ed in partnership with Grosvenor In-vestment Management US Inc.

The site where 21 West End Ave-nue will rise is known as Building 2 of the Riverside Center development site. It was sold to the Dermot Com-pany by Extell Development and the Carlyle Group in December 2012. The new development will include a 112,440-square-foot New York City public school at the base and 23,725 square feet of retail.

4 | January 25, 2013

5 | January 25, 2013

UBS has provided a $49 mil-lion loan to finance Corigin Real Estate Group’s purchase of the Grace Building, a sev-en-story Art Deco building at 535 East 80th Street, where City University of New York has its headquarters. Edward Baquero, Corigin’s president, confirmed the financing to Mortgage Observer Weekly.

The company purchased the 70,502-square-foot office building for $62 million, Mr. Baquero confirmed. CUNY is planning to vacate the proper-ty next spring.

“We have been approached by other schools,” said Mr. Ba-quero, talking about what will become of the building when the main tenant moves out. He added that the building can “potentially have other uses.”

Corigin Real Estate Group has built, renovated and repo-sitioned at least five student housing facilities in New York

City, all of which are leased to New York University.

CUNY purchased 535 East 80th Street in 1958. It will use the proceeds from the sale to purchase science equip-ment and to pay for the 30-year condo interest it agreed to buy last year at 235 East 42nd Street.

NYCB Provides $13.5 M. on Financial District Portfolio

New York Community Bank has provided $13.5 million for real estate investor Manny Malekan to purchase six mixed-use prop-erties in Downtown Manhattan, Mortgage Observer Weekly has learned. Mr. Malekan paid $19.2 million for the portfolio of build-ings, which are mainly located in the Financial District, in a move that shows that both the borrower and the lender have faith in the poten-tial of the apartment market in the area.

“The residential population Downtown is substantially increas-ing,” said Mr. Malekan. “We believe that the Financial District is growing.” His hope, he said, is “to maybe buy the properties next door and build larger buildings.” The damages in the Financial District due to Superstorm Sandy didn’t affect his certainty that the housing mar-ket in the area is gaining traction, Mr. Malekan said.

The portfolio of properties consists of 53 Nassau Street, 122 Nas-sau Street, 20 John Street, 8-10 Liberty Street, 16-18 Maiden Lane and 20 Beaver Street. They have a combined total of 23 resi-dential units and seven retail stores.

The properties were part of the 28-building, $250 million Century Portfolio, which Massey Knakal has been disposing of over the past several months.

“This was a prime portfolio of mixed-use buildings which were driven primarily by their valuable retail space. The sellers originally purchased the properties based upon the quality of the stores, and the buyers appreciated that perspective,” said Massey Knakal Chairman Bob Knakal, who exclusively handled these transactions with Nick Petkoff, director of sales.

UBS Finances Purchase of CUNY’s Headquarters

535 East 80th Street

6 | January 25, 2013

7 | January 25, 2013

The Gershwin Hotel

Gershwin Hotel to Get New Look, New Loan

Short Hills, N.J.-based Investors Bank has closed a $22 million loan for the own-ers of the Gershwin, a hotel in the Flat-iron District. The loan will be used in part to renovate the 150-room hotel, Investors Bank Senior Vice President Mark Noto told Mortgage Observer Weekly.

“Basically, we financed the land own-er in purchasing back the leasehold,” Mr. Noto explained. “And then a portion of the loan is slotted for renovation. They want to bring the hotel back to its original glory.”

Mr. Noto said that the hotel will be op-erated by Triumph Hotels, whose other New York City properties are the Cosmo-politan Tribeca, the Hotel Chandler, the Iroquois, the Washington Jefferson Hotel and the Hotel Belleclaire. A repre-sentative for the Gershwin didn’t return a call seeking comment about the renova-tion timetable before press time.

Part of the allure for Investors, Mr. Noto said, was the fact that the deal is with a cus-tomer the bank has known and done busi-ness with for a while now. It also furthers the bank’s reach into the New York mar-ket—which has been a goal for some time.

“Even though we wouldn’t be out there doing every hotel we run into, the dy-namics of this transaction made sense,” Mr. Noto said. “We’re committed to this area and moving in to New York in a big way, and I think Triumph has a very good track record in operating this type of ho-tel.”

The Return of CMBS: U.S. Volume Soared by 50 Percent in 2012

In 2012, the CMBS market did even bet-ter than expected, with a U.S. lending volume that totaled $48.8 billion, according to data re-leased in Massey Knakal’s 2012 capital mar-ket overview.

“It was a great year for all loan sectors; in the fourth quarter of 2012, all lenders met or ex-ceeded their goals,” said Garrett Thelander, managing director of Massey Knakal Capital Services. The comeback of the CMBS market was the big story of the year, though. After hav-ing basically stopped in 2008, CMBS lending volume increased beyond all expectations and is forecast to rise even more in 2013.

One year ago, CMBS volume was project-ed to rise by 15 percent to $38 billion. In fact, 2012 activity soared much more, growing by 50 percent to $48.8 billion. The consensus is that in 2013 there will be a further jump in CMBS lending volume, projected to total $65 billion, up 34 percent from 2012. “This year, business markets are expected to be calm. CMBS will continue to gain more market share,” said Mr. Thelander.

Among other forecasts for the year, the in-creasing value of commercial real estate prop-erties will mean that previously underwater loans have more hope of refinancing, as shown by declining delinquency rates. In 2013, $350 billion in loans will mature.

Massey Knakal released its 2012 proper-ty sales report for New York City as well. The main trend was a peak in sales in the fourth quarter of 2012. According to the report, the total volume of buildings sold in the New York City commercial real estate market place was $39.1 billion, up from $27.3 billion in 2011. The $17.5 billion that sold in the fourth quarter was an increase of 136 percent from the third quar-ter of 2012 and represented 45 percent of the total sales volume in 2012.

“As expected, the threat of capital gains tax increases had a tangible impact on the invest-ment sales market in 2012,” said Bob Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services.

“The dollar volume of sales rose by 43 per-cent to $39.14 billion, while the number of properties sold climbed to 3,699, a 66 percent increase over 2011. Most notably, the number of properties sold in the Manhattan submarket hit an all-time high of 1,148, surpassing the cy-clical peak in 2007 by 15 percent,” Mr. Knakal added.

In 2013, Massey Knakal predicts that the New York City development market will con-tinue to thrive and that large office building trades—which were relatively slow in 2012—will get back on track. The possible increase in interest rates and the debt ceiling debate will remain the main challenge to these positive trends.

Cushman & Wakefield Arranges $40 M. Financing for Jersey City Office Building

Cushman & Wakefield arranged a $40 mil-lion non-recourse fixed-rate loan on an office building at 95 Greene Street in Jersey City, N.J., for a joint venture between affiliates of Prudential Real Estate Investors and SJP Properties. The financing was provided by a regional commercial bank.

The 300,000-square-foot building is a former Colgate-Palmolive manufacturing facility that was built between 1915 and 1936 across 10 contiguous blocks. It remained Colgate-Palmolive’s major manufacturing and administrative complex until the 1980s. In 2000, SJP Properties redeveloped the building. Since then, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Bank of America, has been a major tenant .

“We received substantial interest in this opportunity from the lending community due to the strong sponsorship of Prudential and SJP Properties, the long-term tenancy of Merrill Lynch, and the property’s high-qual-ity construction and desirable location,” said Mark Ehlinger, a Cushman & Wakefield managing director, who arranged the loan with colleagues Steve Kohn, Chris Moyer and Sridhar Vankayala. The property at 95 Greene Street is located two blocks south-west of Exchange Place, with access to the PATH trains to Manhattan and the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail.

8 | January 25, 2013

9 | January 25, 2013

Jefferson at One Scottsdale

Eastern Consolidated Arranges Financing to Redevelop Williamsburg Block

Heritage Equity Partners—no stranger to development in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood—has se-cured $21.75 million in financing for the redevelopment of an entire city block there. The loan closed on Decem-ber 31, 2012.

Eastern Consolidated Director Gabriel Saffioti and Executive Man-aging Director Alan Miller arranged the loan, which came from a group led by New York City-based Richmond Hill Investment Co.

“They’re going to do a mixed-use commercial redevelopment, because it’s zoned M1-2,” Mr. Saffioti told Mort-gage Observer Weekly. He added that plans at the site, which is bounded by Kent and Wythe Avenues and North 12th and 13th Streets, include park-ing, restaurants and second-floor office space—and the potential for a big-box retailer. An office component may be key, he pointed out, as hip tech firms look for Williamsburg space to accom-modate a large base of employees who are already living there.

Mr. Saffioti declined to reveal the terms of the loan, but pointed out that the value of the land at the site has sky-rocketed over the past 18 months.

Heritage’s other developments in the area include a boutique hotel slated for 96 Wythe Avenue and the conver-sion of a church located between North Sixth and North Seventh Streets.

While nonperforming note sales make up a lot of Eastern Consolidated’s business, Mr. Saffioti said that more and more often, the firm is being called upon to line up financing. He described this financing as “out of the box,” and said it includes acquisition, bridge and take-out financing—“things that tradi-tional lenders wouldn’t look at.”

Eastern Consolidated, he said, doesn’t actively pursue the deals. “Peo-ple come to us,” Mr. Saffioti said. “We have a lot of high-net-worth individuals that we talk to on a regular basis that are just real estate people, and a lot of them make loans as a side business while they’re looking for other situations.”

In the case of this most recent rede-velopment, it would be unlikely to go to a traditional lender because of the lack of in-place income.

HFF arranged $61.6 million in construc-tion and mezzanine financing for Jefferson at One Scottsdale, a 388-unit luxury multi-housing community to be built in Scottsdale, Ariz. Texas Capital Bank and The Private-Bank provided the senior loan, and Beh-ringer Harvard provided the mezzanine financing.

Jefferson at One Scottsdale is located with-in the One Scottsdale mixed-use develop-ment at the intersection of North Scottsdale Road and East Thompson Peak Parkway, ad-jacent to condo complex Grayhawk. Due to be completed in 2014, the property will offer one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and will feature a clubhouse, a lounge, a me-dia room, a business center, two swimming

pools/spas and garages.“Jefferson at One Scottsdale will be the

premier Class A multi-housing project in North Scottsdale, given the use of high-quality materials, superior architecture, ample parking including garages, and prox-imity to high-quality retail and employ-ment,” said HFF Director Mark Erland, who represented TDI Real Estate with Sean Deasy and Charles Halladay. “HFF and TDI were able to secure construction debt and mezzanine financing that recog-nized the quality of the sponsorship, loca-tion, project design and improving Phoenix MSA market fundamentals, highlighted by more than 40,000 new jobs over the past 12 months.”

HFF Secures $61.6 Million for Multi-Housing Project in Arizona

Christopher Carroll has joined the Chicago office of HFF as a managing director, the Hous-ton, Tex.-based firm has announced. He was most recently a managing director for Cohen Financial, where he led a capital markets team.

At HFF, Mr. Carroll will focus on debt place-ment in the Midwest.

“Chris is widely regarded as one of the top mortgage bankers in the Midwest,” said Mi-chael Kavanau, co-head of the Chicago office. “He will be an invaluable resource in terms of expanding HFF’s debt-placement platform and providing value to our clients in the Mid-west and beyond.”

Financial services firm Guggenheim Part-ners has named Ross Levinsohn as chief ex-ecutive officer of its newly formed Guggenheim Digital Media division. Mr. Levinsohn was

most recently interim CEO at Yahoo, where he had also worked as executive vice president and head of global media.

Designed to expand the firm’s existing media and entertainment presence, GDM will over-see and operate several brands that Guggen-heim controls, among them Billboard, Adweek and The Hollywood Reporter.

“GDM will play an integral role in devel-oping our iconic portfolio of existing media and entertainment assets, as well as identi-fying new, groundbreaking investments and partnerships in the music, media, technology and digital entertainment spaces,” explained Guggenheim Partners president Todd Boe-hly. “Ross’s deep industry expertise and im-pressive track record of executing digital media strategies make him the ideal person to spearhead this new effort.”

Work Force

10 | January 25, 2013

upcoming mortgage observer issues:

February Women’s Issue

1/17 1/21 1/29

april Multifamily Lending

3/14 3/18 3/26

March 50 Most Important People in CRE Finance

2/14 2/18 2/26

May Construction Financing

4/18 4/22 4/30

JuneRetail Lending

5/16 5/20 5/28

Issue Reservations Materials Issue Date

January Special Issue: Year in Review

12/6 12/20 1/8

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$85 M. Pool of Loans on Offer from FFN

Loan sale adviser First Financial Network is marketing $85 million in loans—including commercial real es-tate, industrial and residential—for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The loans were previously held by Ber-wyn, Penn.-based NOVA Bank, which was shut down by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking on October 26, 2012.

The loans are being divided into two groups based on asset class. Qualified bidders can get ahold of due diligence materials starting February 4, 2013, on FFN’s website.

“NOVA Bank and its 12 branch-es were closed in October of last year, opening up the door for two offerings that represent an excellent acquisition opportunity both locally in the Phila-delphia area and nationally for inves-tors and banking institutions,” said FFN founder and CEO Bliss Morris.

The first group is made up of rough-ly $20 million in performing and non-performing participations—13 loans in all, for which NOVA Bank was the lead lender. They’re secured by Pennsylva-nia commercial real estate properties. They’ll be sold individually to FDIC-insured institutions.

The second group contains about 500 performing and nonperforming loans, secured by commercial and res-idential properties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Florida. In-vestors for this pool must meet FDIC requirements.

Over the past five years, FFN has handled over 33 FDIC transactions totaling $13.6 billion. The firm an-nounced in late January 2013 that it had signed an additional five-year agreement with the agency to “value, market and sell assets held in FDIC re-ceiverships.”

CORRECTIONA picture caption in our January 18th issue, part of a story on loans closed by Berkadia Commercial Mortgage,

misstated the property in the picture. The property is Rugby Square

Apartments, not Ridgewood Commons.

12 | January 25, 2013

This week, as we head further into 2013, Mortgage Observer Weekly provides data from Trepp to catch up with some well-known New York City delinquent proper-ties. Data provides a look at loans secured by properties such as Peter Cooper Village & Stuyvesant Town, the Dream Hotel, and Clarion LaGuardia Airport Hotel.

As far as delinquent CMBS loans are concerned, for the month of December 2012, Trepp released data that shows the U.S. CMBS delinquency rate remained un-changed for the month, at 9.71 percent.

“After months of continued volatility, the delinquency rate for commercial real estate loans in CMBS has regained some stability,”

Trepp said in an early January 2013 state-ment. “Forward-looking data suggests the rate will see further improvement in the coming months. Special servicers are con-tinuing to resolve non-performing loans and new CMBS deals are being added to the in-dex, diluting the pool of non-performers.”

Source:

The Takeaway

Balance ($) Property City Prop Type Delinquency Status FCL

start Origination MaturitySpecial Servicer Transfer

3,000,000,000 Peter Cooper Village & Stuyvesant Town Pool

New York MF 90+ Days 2/15/2010 11/17/2006 12/8/2016 11/6/2009

375,000,000 The Belnord New York MF 90+ Days 10/20/2006 11/9/2016 6/24/2011

225,000,000 Riverton Apartments New York MF REO 2/2/2009 12/21/2006 1/1/2012 8/7/2008

195,000,000 New York City Apartment Portfolio Roll-Up

New York MF Foreclosure 3/19/2007 4/1/2012 9/8/2008

160,000,000 119 West 40th Street New York OF 90+ Days 11/1/2009 4/2/2007 4/6/2017 6/18/2009

140,000,000 245 Fifth Avenue New York OF NonPerforming Beyond Maturity 5/1/2007 5/11/2012 3/5/2012

97,415,170 The Dream Hotel New York LO 90+ Days 6/1/2006 6/11/2016 4/13/2009

59,308,221 369 Lexington Avenue New York OF Foreclosure 12/1/2006 1/1/2017 2/1/2012

54,042,870 The Time Hotel New York LO 90+ Days 12/29/2005 1/11/2016 1/27/2012

53,000,000 17 Battery Place North New York OF NonPerforming Beyond Maturity 10/29/2004 11/11/2009 9/24/2012

47,296,146 Crowne Plaza - LaGuardia East Elmhurst LO 90+ Days 11/7/2011 2/13/2007 3/1/2017 7/10/2009

47,000,000 311 West 50th Street New York MF Foreclosure 2/29/2012 12/28/2006 1/11/2017 10/13/2011

46,000,000 2 West 46th Street New York OF Foreclosure 12/1/2006 1/1/2012 12/14/2011

31,000,000 1865 Burnett Street Brooklyn MF REO 2/27/2009 2/15/2007 3/1/2012 1/5/2009

30,721,213 Hampton Inn - JFK Jamaica LO 90+ Days 1/23/2007 2/1/2017 6/15/2012

29,000,000 Rocket Lofts Brooklyn MF 90+ Days 3/2/2009 4/19/2007 5/10/2017 12/10/2008

28,683,874 Flushing Landmark Flushing OF 90+ Days 7/20/2006 6/1/2016 5/2/2012

25,699,964 1604 Broadway New York RT Foreclosure 3/29/2007 4/1/2012 11/2/2009

21,000,000 The Axton New York MF NonPerforming Beyond Maturity 4/26/2007 5/8/2012 11/4/2009

16,638,195 Clarion LaGuardia Airport Hotel East Elmhurst LO Foreclosure 9/1/2009 1/24/2007 2/1/2010 5/21/2009

16,039,665 JC Studios Brooklyn IN 90+ Days 12/15/2010 8/8/2005 8/11/2015 9/22/2010

15,907,498 Food Emporium New York RT Foreclosure 8/6/2012 2/18/2005 3/11/2015 6/26/2008

14,500,000 246 Fifth Avenue New York OF REO 12/21/2010 7/5/2007 7/11/2012 6/18/2010

13,025,549 Dix McBride Apartments Far Rockaway MF REO 1/5/2006 2/1/2016 5/6/2010

12,829,604 Village Greens Shopping Center Staten Island RT NonPerforming Beyond Maturity 10/30/2002 11/1/2012

11,581,107 Chloe Foods Brooklyn IN Foreclosure 11/9/2010 11/21/2005 12/11/2012 5/25/2010

10,200,000 Barbanel Multifamily Portfolio New York MF REO 2/20/2009 5/31/2007 6/6/2012 1/7/2009

9,992,851 4234 Bronx Boulevard Bronx OF 90+ Days 5/15/2007 6/1/2017 3/7/2012

7,289,695 3800-3806 Broadway New York MU NonPerforming Beyond Maturity 8/1/2005 8/1/2012 7/26/2012

7,185,000 770 & 780 Garden Street Bronx MF REO 12/3/2009 9/1/2007 9/1/2017 6/4/2009

6,117,428 Sequins Warehouse Woodside IN Foreclosure 9/1/2005 9/1/2015 10/8/2012

5,720,065 1500 Astor Avenue Bronx OF Foreclosure 7/14/2004 8/11/2014 7/31/2012

4,762,706 478 Third Avenue New York MU 90+ Days 8/28/2007 9/8/2017 1/7/2011

3,445,761 509 212th Street New York MF REO 11/1/2007 11/1/2017 6/4/2009

3,024,453 37th Street Brooklyn MU Foreclosure 3/8/2011 1/1/2007 1/11/2017 4/14/2009

1,981,239 3126 Coney Island Avenue Brooklyn MF Foreclosure 9/13/2005 10/1/2012 9/21/2012

1,917,201 1735 Lafayette Avenue Bronx MF Foreclosure 4/22/2009 11/21/2006 12/1/2013 2/3/2009

1,338,384 866-882 East 29th Street Brooklyn OF 90+ Days 12/24/2002 1/1/2013 4/5/2011

977,036 908-926 Fulton Street Brooklyn MU Foreclosure 6/14/2004 7/1/2019 3/12/2012

Total: 4,829,640,895

13 | January 25, 2013

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Q+A

Mortgage Observer Weekly: How did you get your start in the industry?

Gretchen Wilcox: It was a total fluke. I majored in finance and quantitative meth-ods, so I had the finance interest, but I didn’t really know anything about commercial real estate.

Upon graduation from Babson College [in Wellesley, Mass.], I took a job as assistant to the vice president of finance at a hospital in Boston. As part of my job, I monitored a $300 million construction loan that was under-written by Merrill Lynch. After some time, Merrill Lynch asked me to come work for their commercial real estate finance group in New York. The rest is history.

Who was an example or an inspiration in your career?

My mentors are two of my clients: Charles Klatskin of Forsgate Industrial Parks and Anne Estabrook of Elberon Development Co.

They both took me under their wings when I first came to New Jersey, and the way they’ve both supported my career has been extremely educational and rewarding.

Why did you found G.S. Wilcox & Co.?It was 1998. I had worked for a competi-

tor and had really grown that business. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. So I risked everything. At a young age, I walked away from a secure position as executive vice president of another company. I secured a

small bank loan from my local banker and rolled the dice. Within three months, I closed a $25 million retail property, paid off the bank, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.

When I founded G.S. Wilcox & Co., there were two things that I didn’t know: it was the first company to be founded in New Jersey in 25 years, so clients really welcomed it. And it was the first and only female-founded com-mercial real estate mortgage banking firm in the country. To me, I was just starting a busi-ness, but in reality it had more of a splash than I anticipated.

What kind of deals are you busiest ar-ranging at the moment?

We’re doing a lot of financing with the life insurance company product, the CMBS mar-ket and some local banks. We’re primarily fi-nancing stabilized properties in the retail, warehouse, office, apartment and hospital-ity sectors.

Interest rates are at a historic low. It’s amazing how low they are right now.

How was 2012 for you and what is your forecast for 2013?

The last couple of years have been pret-ty good, but I think 2013 is going to be even more successful. With interest rates so low, I think that forward commitments are a lot more in fashion right now. We’re going out six, nine, 12 months in fixing rates, with plans to close down the road. Also, the amount of loans that are coming due in 2014, 2015, 2016 are in the hundreds of billions, so there’s go-ing to be a lot of opportunity.

Next month, our sister publication will run a special Women’s Issue. What is your opinion of the current position of women in CREF? Has it changed?

It’s amazing that there are not very many women in the industry. I don’t understand it. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for the change. You don’t see other female commer-cial real estate mortgage bankers in our area. I think part of it is that it’s a very specialized field; there’s no school for it. As we move for-ward, hopefully we’ll see more women join-ing the field.

How do you balance your roles as a suc-cessful banker and as a mother?

I always put motherhood first.

Gretchen Wilcox

Gretchen WilcoxPresident/CEO and founder of G.S. Wilcox & Co. and partner at Strategic Mortgage Alliance