The Garden State Plaza is making an appearance in another commercial mortgage bond securitization.
Royal Bank of Scotland is prepping a CMBS backed exclusively by a $375 million loan on the property in Paramus, NJ. The deal, RBS Commercial Funding Inc. 2013-GSP, will issue a single tranche of notes with a preliminary AAA’ rating from Fitch Ratings.
If that rings a bell, it’s because a $150 million loan on the same property serves as part of the collateral in a CMBS conduit that RBS launched last week (in conjunction with Wells Fargo), the $1.03 billion WFRBS Commercial Mortgage Trust 2013-C18.
Fitch cited low leverage as a strength of the latest deal: the “stressed” debt service coverage ratio for the trust is 1.99x, and the stressed loan to value is 44.1%.
Strong sales are another strong point, according to Fitch. It pointed to Garden State Plaza’s diverse tenant mix including Nordstrom, Macy’s and JC Penney that generated total sales of $927.8 million as of the trailing 12-months ended August 2013. “The property achieves high sales levels, despite being open only six days a week due to Bergen County Blue Laws that prohibit local retailers from opening on Sundays,” Fitch said in its presale report.
The mall is in a primary market, just 10 miles from Manhattan, yet it also faces a lot of competition with several competitive malls in close proximity. The property has been operated and managed by Westfield Property Management LLC since 1986. It was 96.6% leased as of September 2013.
Proceeds of the whole loan were used to refinance existing debt, pay closing costs and return approximately $900 million to the sponsor.
