Panoramic Interests has secured $104 million through a construction take-out loan to finance the lease-up period of City Gardens, a new construction class-A apartment building in San Francisco. While the investor ultimately secured the three-year, floating-rate loan through Ready Capital, the financing was challenging to obtain due to the rapid market dislocation brought on by the pandemic.

"Market conditions when we launched the offering in late summer 2020 were particularly challenging in San Francisco," Alex Witt, managing director at JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. "Concern over a second COVID-19 wave and a hypothetical exodus from San Francisco was at its highest point. It has been rewarding to see these fears subside as the Bay area's rents have started to rebound." Witt secured the financing on behalf of the borrower along with senior managing director Charles Halladay and managing director Jordan Angel, associate Jonah Aelyon and analyst Lauren Mezzanotte.

Like most deals during the pandemic, the quality of the sponsor and the property helped close the deal. "Lenders drew comfort from the sponsor's past local experience in successfully leasing up similar assets, as well as the value offering of the units," says Witt. "Panoramic meticulously designed a first-grade renter experience. The transaction was also on the large side and represented a good opportunity to increase multi-housing exposure."