Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On December 11, 2015, financial close was reached on a deal in which a syndicate of five banks — including the Bank of China (BOC) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) — entered into a $1.5 billion USD syndicated retail construction loan agreement with an unspecified joint venture — jointly owned by American real estate firm Related Companies, L.P. and Oxford Properties Group Inc., the global real estate of OMERS, the pension fund for municipal employees of Ontario, Canada — for The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards Project. Record ID#107039 captures BOC's contribution. Record ID#107041 captures ICBC's contribution. In addition to BOC and ICBC, the following lenders contributed to the loan syndicate: Deutsche Bank AG, Crédit Agricole, and The Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank). Deutsche Bank served as lead arranger and administrative agent. BOC, ICBC, and Crédit Agricole served as joint lead arrangers. Scotiabank served as documentation agent. The loan was closed ahead of syndication. The proceeds were to be used by the borrower to finance the construction of the 1 million-square foot (92,903 square meters) Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards, a seven-story luxury retail and restaurant pavilion and mall at 20 Hudson Yards facing 10th Avenue in the Hudson Yards neighborhood in the Far West Side of Manhattan, New York City, New York. The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards was the retail component of the wider 28-acre Hudson Yards neighborhood megadevelopment between West 30th and West 34th Streets and 10th and 11th Avenues. The Shops & Restaurants site would house 100 businesses, including new restaurants from world-renowned chefs Thomas Keller, José Andrés, and Costas Spiliadis and a flagship 250,000-square foot Neiman Marcus (New York's first ever) on its top three floors. It included an 85-foot high central atrium with a custom-designed 300-foot-long, 90-foot-high glass feature wall facing the west, triple-height circulation spaces on the north and south sides with direct connections to the lobbies of adjacent 30 Hudson Yards and 10 Hudson Yards, an eastern façade that ventilated the below rail yards, and a co-generation plant powering the development located on its roof. Once completed, it was expected to draw over 24 million people and generate $1 billion USD in revenue annually. Related and Oxford closed the loan as part of a $5 billion USD financing package for the Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards and neighboring office tower 30 Hudson Yards, with a $690 million USD syndicated loan for the latter. Related and Oxford invested their own equity for the project. In 2014, Related raised about $600 million USD through the EB-5 immigrant visa program in 2014 to help fund construction of the foundation that supported the Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards and three of the Hudson Yards skyscrapers, and as of October 2015 it and Oxford were actively raising $600 million USD in EB-5 money to support the Shops & Restaurants and one of the office buildings of Hudson Yards. Ultimately, Related raised up to $1.2 billion USD of financing for Hudson Yards via EB-5, which was criticized because the program was intended to support distressed areas, not a luxury megaproject like Hudson Yards; Hudson Yards only qualified because it was included in a targeted employment area with a certain unemployment threshold with public housing projects in Harlem, and the whole project may have claimed an entire year’s worth of visas issued under EB-5 (taking away financing for projects in true low-opportunity places). Additionally, the entire Hudson Yards development was criticized for looking dull, lifeless, and garish. Elkus Manfredi Architects and Kohn Pedersen Fox were responsible for project design. James Carpenter Design Associates was responsible for the west façade feature wall. Construction began in June 2015 with opening schedule for 2018. It opened on March 15, 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the mall lost its anchor tenant Neiman Marcus, which filed for bankruptcy in May 2020 and shut its Hudson Yards location after just 16 months of operation; the developers later converted Neiman Marcus's former space into office space. Sometime between 2016 and 2021, a syndicate of around 14 banks — including BOC and Deutsche Bank as lead lenders — entered into a $1.2 billion USD syndicated balance-sheet loan agreement with the borrower for The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards Refinancing Project. The proceeds were used by the borrower to refinance the $1.5 billion USD syndicated construction loan. Record ID#107042 captures BOC's contribution. Then, in March 2022, the 14-bank lending syndicate — still including BOC and Deutsche Bank — entered into an amendment agreement with the borrower; in the amendment, the lenders extended the maturity period by the loan by four years. Record ID#107043 captures BOC's contribution to this extension.