Thor Buys Back 470 Broadway At Discount After Losing It To Lender
Less than a year after Thor Equities turned 470 Broadway over to its lender as it was staring down the barrel of a foreclosure lawsuit, the company has reacquired the building for less than a third of its previous value.
A Thor affiliate acquired 470 Broadway for less than $8.1M this month, according to city property records. The Joe Sitt-led firm in October transferred the deed to the two-story building to LNR Partners in a transaction valued at $25.4M.
Thor originally acquired 470 Broadway in 2007 for $15.5M, and in 2012 it took out a $20.5M commercial mortgage-backed securities loan originated by Morgan Stanley.
Thor first ran into difficulties with the building, which has roughly 7K SF of retail space and a 3K SF basement, in April 2022 after Aldo vacated amid the pandemic. Thor fell into delinquency on debt payments in 2020, The Real Deal previously reported.
LNR, acting as special servicer for the CMBS trust, filed to foreclose on the loan in October 2021, claiming it was owed $22.9M in unpaid debts. Thor had roughly $18M in unpaid principal debt, $2.6M in unpaid interest and $2.3M in unpaid protective advances at the time of the deed transfer, per PincusCo, which first reported the latest sale.
A year later, the foreclosure suit was discontinued after the deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure transaction shifted ownership to LNR Partners. The property needed roughly $500K of repairs, including to its roof, fire alarm system and flooring, according to special servicer commentary from June posted in the Morningstar Credit database.
LNR hired JLL to lease and manage the building, it said in its loan commentary, but it had no leads. LNR enlisted Cushman & Wakefield to sell the property, which put it up for auction through Ten-X last month.
Thor, through the entity 470 Broadway Owners LLC, won the auction and closed on the deal a month later on July 7, according to property records. The purchase price was $8,077,750, a far cry from the property's appraised value of $29.2M when the CMBS loan was originated in 2012.
The loss for the CMBS trust on the deal amounted to roughly $16.2M, according to the Morningstar Credit database.
A Thor spokesperson didn't immediately respond to Bisnow's request for comment.
Thor’s purchase coincides with a rebound for Manhattan’s retail landlords, with rents rising and availability falling in the majority of the borough’s busiest retail corridors. SoHo’s Broadway corridor in particular is seeing high demand, with availability dropping by 47.1% between the second quarter of 2022 and Q2 2023.
