Wells Fargo closes $115M Fannie refi on a Long Island City lease-up

Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital has closed $115 million of Fannie Mae-backed debt to refinance Eagle Lofts Collection, Phase 2, the 301-unit Long Island City tower an affiliate of Rockrose Development opened last year, as Commercial Observer first reported the closing. The 19-story building at 43-14 Queens Street shares a lobby and amenities with Rockrose's adjacent 790-unit Phase 1 tower, which puts both rent rolls on one Court Square leasing story.

Avison Young's tri-state debt and equity finance team — Scott Singer, Andy Singer, Kevin Swartz and Kathleen McSharry — negotiated the financing; Wells Fargo originated it out of a group led by Pete Cannava, Philip Maniscalco and Brian Antonuccio. The coverage does not disclose term, spread or leverage, though it does disclose the mix, 70 percent market rate against 30 percent designated affordable, and an amenity set — saunas and a spa, a bowling alley, a golf simulator, a rooftop pool — that the market-rate half of the building is sold on.

Refinancing a building that opened last year writes the loan against a rent roll with barely a year behind it, which makes the collateral Long Island City absorption rather than a proven tenancy. That is the risk a construction lender wants off its balance sheet, and agency execution moves it without a sale: no trade, no published price, no fresh comp for the next Long Island City deal. What 301 lease-up units in Court Square are actually worth gets answered by no transaction.

As this publication has argued, the refinancing wall is being rolled rather than resolved, and the contest is over which balance sheet keeps the duration. This one went to the agencies, and the underwriting behind it leans on a market call: Avison Young's Scott Singer described Long Island City as "one of the region's most compelling multifamily markets," citing residential demand and transit. A broker's market view is not a rent roll, and this loan is sized off the second.

The affordable set-aside shapes the execution, too: Maniscalco, Wells Fargo's head of production for multifamily capital, led his statement with the 301 residences and "nearly a third of them affordable," which suggests mission-eligibility is part of how an unseasoned 301-unit tower clears the agency channel. Rockrose chief operating officer Richard Brancato credited long-standing relationships with Wells Fargo and Avison Young rather than the terms, and on a refinance of a new building the relationship is the underwriting.

Where Phase 2's market-rate rents land as the building competes with the rest of the Court Square pipeline will settle whether the loan was sized well or merely closed. Rockrose has its own comp set next door in Phase 1's 790 units, and the next two leasing seasons will show whether the second tower clears at the first one's pricing or below it.