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RE Debt

Dwight writes a $130M Phoenix bridge before the takeout exists

A finished 389-unit tower with retail still in buildout shows private credit financing the lease-up window, not the stabilization, and pricing the difference into a reserve.

Dwight Investment Management has originated a $130 million bridge refinance for SAIYA, the 389-unit, 23-story mixed-use tower Bridge Investment Group and Hatteras Sky completed in downtown Phoenix in 2025, with proceeds retiring existing debt, covering loan costs, and funding an interest reserve—the third use announcing what kind of loan this is. Brandon Baksh, Tommy Ng and Talisse Thompson originated the financing for the borrowers.

SAIYA is finished but its income statement is not: the 12,550 square feet of ground-floor retail, home to Pablo's restaurant and lounge and to Yvree, an integrated wellness studio, is expected to open later this fall, so what sits behind the loan is a 389-unit residential lease-up plus two retail tenants still in buildout. The coverage does not say what the prior debt was, how much of the $130 million went into the reserve, or how long that reserve runs—and those are the terms that would actually set the leverage.

Dwight's recent run makes the Phoenix print legible: September's $62 million Culver City bridge paid down prior debt and preferred equity before lease-up finished, August's Newark refi was interest-only, nonrecourse, and priced off stabilized cash flow, and Phoenix sits between those poles—the building is done, the rent roll is still forming, and there is no agency-eligible coverage ratio yet to hand the loan to a takeout.

That seam is deliberate: agency capital will finance a stabilized apartment tower any day of the week; a bridge lender has to buy the year or two before stabilization exists and price for the chance that the takeout window is thinner than the underwriting assumes. Bridge Investment Group carries $49.3 billion in registered assets, per PRED's records, which is the caliber of sponsor balance sheet a lender wants behind a lease-up. The lender on the other side of the table reports $4.6 billion and 41 people.

An interest reserve in this structure is how the lender gets paid while the building finds its rent roll, which moves the sponsor's leasing risk onto the loan's clock, and the refinancing wall is being rolled, not repriced, with each extension pushing price discovery into the next maturity. Phoenix is about as clean an example as the thesis gets: the stated uses retire the old loan and fund the carry, with no paydown in the disclosed list, and the retail openings later this fall will be the first live read on whether that reads as patience or as deferral. The reserve's term is the real maturity date on this $130 million, the coverage does not disclose it, and the number that will settle everything is how far the apartment lease-up has run by the time it burns off.

Dwight bridge printsAmountCollateral state
Newark refi (Aug)$70MStabilized cash flow
Culver City refi (Sep)$62MPre-lease-up, complex stack
SAIYA, Phoenix (Sep)$130MCompleted, leasing
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