Berkadia Arranges $50M Refi for New Orleans Tower

Pan American Life Center. Image courtesy of Stirling Properties

With the assistance of Berkadia, Stirling Properties has refinanced Pan American Life Center, a 674,000-square-foot office property in New Orleans. Berkadia arranged the $49.8 million financing deal through a securitization from Wells Fargo.

Standing 28 stories at 601 Poydras St., Pan American first opened its doors in the city’s central business district in 1980 and underwent a cosmetic renovation in 2011. The Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed property features 15,000 square feet of retail space, a covered parking garage and a conference center with an approximately 25,500-square-foot multi-purpose facility and 252-seat auditorium. The long list of office occupants at the tower includes Pan-American Life Insurance Group, which has maintained its headquarters in the building since 1980, law firm McGlinchey Stafford, a tenant since 2008, and Stirling, which set up shop in a 6,700-square-foot space on the 27th floor in 2016.

Andy Coleman, senior managing director with Berkadia, orchestrated a 10-year fixed-rate loan featuring a 60 percent loan-to-value ratio and 25-year amortization schedule for Stirling. The financing comes roughly nine years after the commercial real estate company acquired Pan American from Equastone Real Estate Investment Advisors for $60.9 million. Stirling had relied on a $49.5 million Wells Fargo loan, scheduled to mature in 2021, to finance the December 2010 purchase.

No property type left behind

Berkadia is having another active year of orchestrating commercial real estate financing across the property-type spectrum, throughout the country. The firm, a joint venture of Berkshire Hathaway and Jefferies Financial Group, landed a $19 million construction loan for the 74,000-square-foot Royalton Collection retail project tin Strongsville, Ohio, and arranged a $170 million financing deal for the 603-key Great Wolf Lodge indoor water park resort in Garden Grove, Calif. More recently, Berkadia facilitated the $23 million sale of the 225-unit Regal Vista multifamily community in Atlanta and secured financing for the deal as well.