Savanna Scores $105M Manhattan Tower Refi

New York-based private equity firm Savanna received $105 million in financing for The Six, a newly constructed boutique office building in Midtown Manhattan’s Plaza District. Cottonwood Group provided the bridge loan, which retired a maturing construction loan.

The property at 106 W. 56th St. received an $80 million note from United Overseas Bank back in 2017, CommercialEdge data shows. Rising on a 0.1-acre site three blocks south of Central Park, the tower offers 90,000 square feet across 26 stories. Perkins Eastman designed the high-rise, which delivered earlier this year, according to New York YIMBY.

The building’s floorplates gradually reduce their size through several setbacks as the tower rises, ranging between 4,524 rentable square feet on the bottom stories and 2,492 rentable square feet on the top floors. Amenities include a tenant-exclusive lounge on the lobby level and a conference center.

A slow path to recovery

Even though Manhattan’s office market has been slow to recover from pandemic-induced setbacks, the borough has been outperforming all other gateway markets in terms of vacancy: In July, Manhattan’s vacancy rate hit 10.9 percent, significantly lower than the national figure of 15.5 percent. The upscale Plaza District has one of the highest vacancy rates among Manhattan’s submarkets, reaching 11.8 percent in July.

In May, Savanna secured $264 million in financing for 141 Willoughby, a 400,000-square-foot office and retail development in Brooklyn. The project broke ground in late 2020 and neighbors JEMB Realty Corp.’s 1 Willoughby Square building—downtown Brooklyn’s tallest tower—which opened in June.