BHI writes $71.5M construction loan for 250 Bayonne units

BHI, the U.S. branch of Bank Hapoalim, has provided $71.5 million of construction financing for a 250-unit apartment community in Bayonne, N.J., backing a joint venture of Prestige Development and Anak Development, Commercial Observer reported. The loan divides to roughly $286,000 a unit, and that per-door number is where the credit's character shows: a bank balance sheet funding a ground-up build whose value rests as much on a light-rail stop and an amenity program as on the dirt underneath it.

The project, The Standard, is designed by MHS Architecture and rises at 197 Avenue East, steps from the 22nd Street Station on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, on the former site of the Villanova Catering Hall. It will hold studio through two-bedroom units, a 227-space parking garage and about 1,950 square feet of ground-floor retail; the amenity program runs from a pool and sundeck through a fitness center, yoga room, sauna, coworking area, golf simulator and dog walk. Completion is slated for summer 2027.

Set the parking count against the unit count and the project's thesis surfaces: 227 spaces for 250 homes assumes a meaningful share of tenants will ride the light rail instead of keeping a car, and the capital saved on structured parking is what pays for the pool, the sauna and the simulator. That split is why amenities have become the entry fee rather than a differentiator — a project without the full program is not competing for the same tenant, which suggests the spec, not the rent roll, is what a construction lender is now taking as collateral.

Maven Capital's Sean Shahkohi negotiated the financing. David Kesselman, BHI's vice president of commercial real estate, said in a statement that the Bayonne project would "expand the local housing supply and meet growing demand," and Prestige principal Michael Shahkohi said in a statement that BHI understood "both the complexity of construction execution and the long-term vision" of the build.

A summer 2027 completion puts The Standard's lease-up on the near side of the 2028-29 supply gap that apartment capital is now underwriting as a financing problem rather than a demand problem, the split between the income half and the scarcity half of the apartment bid. A sponsor that finishes ahead of the shortfall and leases into a tightening market collects that scarcity without carrying construction cost through the drought itself. The money here also comes off a bank's own balance sheet, since BHI is a branch of Bank Hapoalim, not a fund, and for that kind of lender the exposure is the pipeline completing alongside The Standard over the next 18 months, not the shortage that follows it.

If the 250 units fill at the rents the basis requires in 2027, lenders will treat the gap trade as financeable at the front end, which is where the credit risk actually sits.