Los Angeles and Atlanta – Cohen & Associates, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm, has refinanced the multifamily portion of a six-year-old, mixed used development in Downtown Atlanta’s Historic Auburn Avenue District with a $10 million loan from Prudential Mortgage.
Located at 171 Auburn Avenue NE and spanning an entire city block, the five-story brick-clad Renaissance Walk features 140 one- and two-bedroom apartment rental units over 30,500 square feet of street level retail. Since acquiring the property out of receivership in December 2011, Cohen & Associates has successfully stabilized the asset, with 97 percent of the apartments now leased at market rates. The retail component, which was completely vacant at the time of acquisition, is currently 60 percent leased to a mix of national and local merchants.
“This refinance program was a very complex financial package that came together so favorably for the asset and our investors as a result of our very talented and experienced team of financial people working together to bring this to fruition ” said Cohen & Associates President Gidi Cohen. “As a result, we are pleased to be returning equity back to our investors which will ultimately produce more attractive cash-on-cash returns making the complexities of this refinance plan very interesting and rewarding.”
Shlomi Ronen, Managing Principal, of Dekel Capital and David Wallenstein, Managing Director of Churchill Capital arranged the new fixed rate loan on behalf of the borrower.
“An additional feature of this refinance program is that the retail section of the property is no longer part of the new mortgage’s collateral pool,” added Ronen. “Cohen & Associate’s active management of the project helped us tremendously in capturing a very healthy refinance program in addition to releasing the retail portion of this property which is now unencumbered.”
About Cohen & Associates
Cohen & Associates invests in strategically located, ground-up developments and income-producing real estate throughout California and key cities in the Southeastern and Southwestern U.S., particularly in the underserved secondary or tertiary markets. Our portfolio includes apartment buildings, mixed-use development and broken condominium projects as well as notes secured by those assets. We specifically target assets that can be acquired at attractive valuations and whose upside has been affected by operational inefficiencies caused by neglect, mismanagement or under-capitalization. We then apply a disciplined investment and risk management approach to each investment. We carefully analyze local and regional market conditions such as job growth, barriers to entry, and real estate trends, to help us identify the most profitable exit strategy. We have a strong track record for turning around underperforming properties to the advantage of our investors.
