Citrine Advisors Secures $7M in Financing for Bay Area Property

By Keith Loria

1290-1298 E. 14th St.

Citrine Advisors has received $6.5 million in financing to acquire and renovate a 34,149 square-foot, mixed-use building in San Leandro, Calif.

Continental Partners arranged the non-recourse bridge loan, despite the fact that the asset only had a 28 percent occupancy rate and minimal in-place cash flow at the time of the deal. The four-story building is now 100 percent leased to Wells Fargo.

“It was a value-add play,” J.M. Grimaldi, Continental Partners’ executive vice president, told Commercial Property Executive. “For this particular opportunity, the borrower had a tenant in tow, and identified an opportunity and tied it up and Wells Fargo will not operate out of both the retail and office component.”

Located at 1290-1298 E. 14th St., in the San Leandro submarket, the property was originally built in 1972. The financing will also be used upgrade both the interior and the exterior of the building.

Wells Fargo is headquartered in San Francisco and will use this property to provide consumer-facing retail on the ground floor and corporate offices on the additional floors.

According to Grimaldi, the financing and lease to a tenant such as Wells Fargo shows the increasing appeal of East Bay submarkets like San Leandro.

“I had a lot of interest on this deal and it got very competitive,” he said. “I had several lenders stepping up and it basically became a bidding war. That helped get more competitive pricing for my client and we were able to exceed the sponsor’s requirements by sourcing a loan sized at 80 percent of the total project cost or 75 percent of appraised stabilized value.”

Near Major Markets

The property is situated in central downtown, within close proximity to BART, which provides easy commutes to both Oakland and San Francisco.

“It’s in a primarily commercial corridor, so Wells Fargo will be in and among many of the other banking tenants in the immediate area, furthering the appeal,” Grimaldi said. “There are lots of opportunities in San Leandro’s neighboring areas. It’s adjacent to primary markets but you don’t have the expanse of those major markets.”

In May, Continental Partners secured a $7 million loan for the purchase of the Hudson Motor Building in Chicago’s South Loop.