Las Vegas Portfolio Lands $116M in CMBS Financing

6226 W. Sahara Ave., NV Energy corporate headquarters. Photo courtesy of Dekel Capital

Moonwater Capital has successfully recapitalized a Las Vegas office portfolio comprising more than 611,00 square feet. The investment firm received $116 million in CMBS financing, arranged by Dekel Capital, a merchant banking firm that had worked on multiple occasions with the lender. Proceeds will be used to retire existing debt and buyout investors.

Citi Real Estate Funding Inc. and Barclays Capital Real Estate Inc. provided the 10-year loan for Moonwater and its equity partners. The lender opted for a single loan for the entire portfolio. In a prepared statement, Dekel Capital Managing Principal Shlomi Ronen noted that this single-loan strategy helped achieve Moonwater’s goal of obtaining full ownership of the assets.

Portfolio details

Securing the loan are six office buildings situated in the Spring Valley, Airport and Summerlin submarkets of Las Vegas. The portfolio is 97 percent occupied, with most properties being single tenant.

The largest of them is 6226 W. Sahara Ave., a four-story office building totaling 292,180 square feet. The property underwent a cosmetic renovation in 1994 and is fully leased by public utility company NV Energy. According to CommercialEdge data, Moonwater Capital purchased the asset in 2020 for $33.4 million, from Davidson Kempner Capital Management. The sale was subject to a $23.8 million loan held by Washington Federal Bank.

Three properties in the portfolio are part of The Crossing Business Center—a master-planned park set to include a total of 1.2 million square feet of space in Summerlin, adjacent to the I-215/15 interchange. Moonwater Capital purchased the assets from Hines Interests in 2018, in a portfolio transaction totaling $62.2 million. That purchase was also subject to a loan, totaling $82.8 million and held by Prime Finance Partners. The buildings are:

• 9901-9921 Covington Cross Drive, totaling 57,124 square feet in size; tenants include Adtalem Global Education & Chamberlain University College of Nursing
• 1450 Center Crossing Road, which comprises 52,975 square feet and is fully leased to Hilton Grand Vacations
• 10190 Covington Cross Drive, measuring 72,000 square feet and entirely occupied by Coin Cloud

The remaining two assets are situated at 6551 and 6543 S. Las Vegas Blvd. and are 31,105 and 102,276 square feet in size. These properties are fully leased by Amazon and WeWork, respectively, and were acquired in the same 2018 portfolio transaction.

Moonwater Capital’s equity partners include Ryan Tedder, Grammy-award winning songwriter, producer and lead Singer of OneRepublic; Keith Kantrowitz, owner and president of Power Express Mortgage; and Alex Pall and Drew Taggart of the Grammy-award winning DJ duo, The Chainsmokers.

Last year, Dekel Capital arranged another recapitalization for Moonwater’s 177,301-square-foot Montecito Tower, situated at 6605 Grand Montecito Parkway. Wells Fargo Bank provided the $33.3 million loan for the Class A building—the loan was similarly used to change ownership structure and retire existing debt.

CMBS will likely see another boom this year. Experts weighed in that there’s ample reason for optimism in 2022, but some doubts remain about how the delayed return to office might affect the market. KBRA forecast commercial real estate securitizations to be between $150 billion and $165 billion this year.