Commercial Observer – April 21, 2026

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These lenders and debt brokers moved up sharply in the Power Finance rankings — while others made impressive debuts.

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These are the most influential lenders and debt brokers nationwide — and they’re working in one of the toughest markets in memory.

Fannie and Freddie Forgotten?

Here’s why the government-backed mortgage market giants did not make the Power Finance cut in 2026.

You Can Take It to the Bank Again

Disruptions and distress in recent years drove big, conventional banks to the commercial real estate sidelines. That’s all in the past.

Private credit lenders and funds are here to stay even as banks reclaim their share of the commercial real estate debt markets. L.A., Again With

The city’s downtown seems to be forever on the cusp of a sharp, post-pandemic comeback — why this time might be different.

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News

Penn Station Area Drawing Most Manhattan Office Relocations

A report last week from Cushman & Wakefield shows that almost a quarter of Manhattan office relocations in 2023, 2024 and 2025 ended up in the Pennsylvania Station submarket, and that most tenants relocated while expanding their space.

The report indicates that “between 2023 and 2025, more than 3.5 million square feet of relocations flowed into Penn Station, with the majority (83.2 percent) originating from neighboring Midtown submarkets.”

Financial services firms took 24 percent of this space, with professional services firms just behind at 23.7 percent, technology taking 18.8 percent, and media and information taking 10.7 percent. The remaining space was divided along categories that included media, legal, real estate, entertainment and more.

The report noted that 14 office buildings have been developed or renovated in the Penn Station submarket over the past decade, adding or augmenting around 23

million square feet of highly desirable office space, and expanding submarket inventory by 124.2 percent. These buildings have a current total vacancy rate of just 6.5 percent. For comparison, a separate C&W report pegged Manhattan’s overall vacancy rate at 19.9 percent by the end of March.

Lori Albert, director of tri-state research at C&W, said that this development has transformed the Penn District from an area littered with Class B and C office product to a submarket dominated by Class A space.

“Prior to this modernization of the area, there were only six Class A buildings in the Penn Station area. Now there are 20, and there’s less B and C,” said Albert. “Since Hudson Yards began in 2016, the whole area has been transformed, and then, in 2023, the renovations of Penn 1 and Penn 2 really modernized the area. It helped to alleviate a lot of overcrowdedness and just became very attractive to a lot of tenants.”

Class A space helped spur leasing.

Looking ahead, six additional conversions or new developments are currently in the works that will expand Class A inventory in the submarket by another 30.1 percent over the next seven years.

After Penn Station, the next most popular submarket for relocations has been Sixth Avenue/Rockefeller Center, with just under 2 million square feet over the report’s time period. Of the top five submarkets, only these two saw increasing relocation square footage over each of the three years.

C&W also noted that companies

Real estate investment firm Sovereign Partners was in contract last week to buy the 40-story Midtown office skyscraper at 575 Fifth Avenue from Beacon Capital Partners and MetLife

Will Silverman and Gary Phillips at Eastdil Secured had been marketing the 544,000-square-foot office building on the corner of East 47th Street and Fifth Avenue with a target price of at least $400 million.

The exact purchase price could not be learned, but it is believed to be closer to the $385 million that MetLife paid to developer Fred Wilpon’s Sterling Equities for the property in 2005, sources said.

The building was later divided into four condominium units in 2008. In 2015, MetLife sold a 50 percent stake to Beacon.

The property’s office portion — called Unit A — was reconfigured in 2015 to cover roughly 90 percent of the entire building, or around 504,000 square feet. Meanwhile, the retail units were also adjusted to account for roughly 40,000 square feet.

Eastdil — which was recently acquired by Savills in a $1.1 billion deal — was initially hired to sell the building in 2022 without the retail space, but had no success. That’s why the tower is now being sold along with the 40,000-square-foot retail space.

French sports fashion retailer Lacoste is currently open in 10,000 square feet at the building. According to a Lacoste executive’s LinkedIn post, the brand began

relocating to the Penn Station submarket are paying prime rates. Average asking rents there were 37.8 percent higher than the Midtown average, and overall vacancy was 3.1 percent lower.

The report also cited how companies relocating to the Penn District are “significantly more likely to expand their footprint rather than consolidate,” bucking current trends toward smaller leases

Albert credited the larger footprints to the availability of larger blocks of space in the Penn submarket. —Larry Getlen

negotiations in September 2022 and signed a lease in September 2023 for possession in July 2024. It finally opened its immersive flagship just one year ago on April 10, 2025.

The building is leased by Cushman & Wakefield, with its website showing less than 25,000 square feet available in three to four smaller spaces. The building was 87 percent occupied as of September, The Real Deal reported at the time

The building’s amenities include three conference rooms, a lounge and café, an on-site Starbucks, a central atrium and a bike storage area that includes lockers and showers. There is even a beehive on the roof through a partnership with the Boston-based Best Bees

It is yet unclear if the bees will have to swarm elsewhere or if Sovereign will continue the association with the honey makers.

Sovereign Partners is headed by brothers Darius and Cyrus Sakhai and includes William Gentile and Darius’s son Stephan. The brothers have been responsible for investing in 20 million square feet of office, multifamily and retail space across the U.S.

They moved from England to America in the 1980s and later acquired properties in the Southeast during the savings and loan crisis while managing the family portfolio.

None of the parties involved in the deal at 575 Fifth Avenue responded to requests for comment. —Lois Weiss

Newmark Hires ExCitigroup Director to Expand Data Center Investment

Newmark hired Philip O’Bannon to lead its infrastructure capital markets business.

O’Bannon, previously a director at Citigroup, will focus on fast-growing investments for Newmark, such as data centers, energy transition assets, power and utilities, and other large-scale infrastructure sectors, according to an April 14 announcement from Newmark.

O’Bannon is equipped with more than 20 years of experience in investment banking and engineering.

As senior managing director, O’Bannon will lead the business in expanding advisory and capital-raising capabilities across the firm’s full infrastructure investment spectrum.

O’Bannon, who began his new role in March, reports to Andrew Warin, head of strategic advisory at Newmark.

O’Bannon is positioned to work closely with Newmark’s debt and structured finance and data center capital markets teams.

Citigroup declined to comment.

Emily Davis

Manhattan Investment Sales in First Quarter Strongest Since 2021

During the first quarter of 2026, Manhattan investment sales — including deals in the multifamily, office, retail, development and conversions sectors — grew by 33 percent quarter-over-quarter, totaling $3.7 billion across 92 transactions, according to a report last week from Avison Young

That was the strongest quarterly performance since 2021. And, going off that success, Manhattan’s total predicted dollar sales volume for 2026 is $14.8 billion, a 23 percent year-over-year growth when compared to 2025’s total. (Avison Young projects full-year totals based on first-quarter activity.)

“Manhattan really, really jumped off the charts,” said Brandon Polakoff, principal and head of New York investment sales at Avison Young. “This echoes what we are seeing in the market, where there is this flight to quality assets in A-plus-plus locations.”

Multifamily property sales in Manhattan hit a total of $1.07 billion in the first quarter of 2026, a 246 percent quarter-over-quarter rise across 44 deals. Multifamily sales are set to reach $4.3 billion by year’s end, a 145 percent increase compared to 2025.

Looking at New York City as a whole, Avison Young found that total dollar sales volume for the first quarter hit $5.68 billion, a 23 percent quarterly rise, across 182 total sales in all five boroughs. In all of New York City, the estimated total dollar volume for sales in 2026 is $22.71 billion, according to Avison Young, which is slightly below the 10-year average of $23.4 billion.

A lot of that activity is set to be led by the office market, which captured the most capital in the first quarter with $1.8 billion in total dollar volume across 22 sales in the city, according to the report. —Amanda Schiavo

Adam America Real Estate Picks David Brickman as CEO

Adam America Real Estate announced April 15 that it has hired David Brickman as CEO. Brickman will quarterback the New York multifamily investment and development firm’s long-term growth strategy and its investment and development platforms.

Brickman comes over from Onex Real Estate Partners and Skyview Companies, where he was a partner at each firm over the last 15 years.

Brickman told Commercial Observer that he has known the principals at Adam America, primarily Dvir Cohen Hoshen, for several years, and the parties began discussions a few months ago about bringing him on board.

“I was finishing up a project in Florida, they were wrapping up a few projects and looking for a management change with new leadership, they reached out, and the rest is history,” he said.

Brickman added, “There’s a comfort level with the founders and partners that I had, and I was very impressed with their pipeline and track record.”

Adam America Real Estate was founded in 2009 and has developed more than 5,750 residential units in the last 17 years. The firm currently has a portfolio valued at $4.2 billion, with an additional 1,600 units in its pipeline, which encompasses national multifamily and condominiums, as well as student housing and build-to-rent (BTR) projects.

Brickman believes the firm has established itself in multifamily and condos and is poised to take further hold of the student housing and BTR subsectors, bringing the firm into a third phase of its evolution.

“We’re really experts in living-sector development, and where we have been successful is developing condos and [multifamily] for two decades,” he explained. “Now over the last five years, we’ve leaned into student housing and buildto-rent development, we’ve successfully executed those, and our vision for our company going forward is leaning into those new sectors.” —Brian Pascus

Fisher Brothers Taps Former RFR Exec to Lead Capital Markets

Jonathan Frey, formerly head of debt capital markets at RFR Holding, joined Fisher Brothers in late March as the firm’s new managing director of capital markets.

Frey is tasked with advancing the firm’s capital markets strategy and supporting its continued portfolio growth. Fisher Brothers owns and operates commercial, residential and experiential retail assets in New York City, Las Vegas, Miami and Washington, D.C. The company recently secured $117.5 million to refinance a newly completed multifamily building in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood.

Fisher’s $6.1 billion assets under management span more than 1,500 multifamily units and $1.4 billion worth of new developments since 2014, per its website.

Frey joins the firm after a more than three-year stint at RFR Holding, preceded by lengthy tenures at Pyramid Management Group and Morgan Stanley. Throughout his career, Frey has led billions of dollars in financing transactions across multiple asset classes, according to Fisher Brothers.  Frey’s arrival was quickly followed by that of Kent Williams, Fisher Brothers’ new chief accounting officer. Williams joined the firm this month from his previous role as controller at East End Capital —E.D.

Charlie Rose

Managing Director Global Head of Real Estate Credit CEO of INCREF

Teresa Zien Managing Director Portfolio Manager, North America http://www.invesco.com/real-estate

Yorick Starr Managing Director Investment Officer, North America

Justin Chausse Managing Director Credit Investments, North America

Mattress Company Avocado Takes Over Entirety of 942 Third Avenue Retail

Avocado Green Mattress, a California-based mattress company specializing in eco-friendly and nontoxic mattresses, leased the entire five-story, 12,000-square-foot retail townhouse at 942 Third Avenue for a new vertical flagship.

The asking rent was $750,000 per year for the new deal in Midtown East, an area known for its design and furniture brands. The neighborhood is anchored by the nearby Decoration & Design Building and Architects & Designers Building

Previously, 942 Third Avenue, a highly visible site that sits between East 56th and East 57th streets, was occupied by Modani Furniture

Since the building is not landmarked, it provides an opportunity for expansive branding and signage for Avocado, which will also have the use of the building’s basement space.

The length of the new deal was unclear. Avocado was represented by Alex Yanoff of Brand Urban and Tess Jacoby of Rue, while Retail by MONA’s Brandon L. Singer, Sunny Woo and Jason Lloyd represented the building ownership, married couple Naomi and Andre Altholz

“This transaction reflects a broader shift in how brands are thinking about physical space,” said Singer, founder and CEO of Retail by MONA. “Avocado recognized the opportunity to create a vertically integrated flagship that goes beyond traditional retail and serves as an immersive brand environment.”

Founded in 2016, the mattress company already has brand outposts in Manhattan’s Flatiron District at 135 Fifth Avenue and in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at 57 North Sixth Street. The mattresses are also sold through other furniture retailers. —Lois Weiss

Health Food Brand Nut Bar to Open First U.S. Location in New York City

Nut Bar, a Toronto-based health food brand with six locations in the Canadian city, is set to open its first U.S. location in New York City this fall, having signed a 10-year, 2,500-square-foot lease at 28 Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich Village.

The retail space comprises 1,100 square feet on the ground floor and 1,400 square feet on the lower level, according to RTL Real Estate, which brokered the lease on behalf of landlord the Brodsky Organization. The asking rent was around $25,000 per month, according to RTL.

“The location will serve as the brand’s first U.S. outpost, introducing its healthfocused concept to a neighborhood supported by a strong daytime and residential customer base,” RTL said in a statement announcing the lease.

It seems like Nut Bar will replace bakery Mah-ZeDahr in its new space between West 10th and West 11th streets, as the bakery is listed as permanently closed at the property.

Charles Rapuano and Steven Baker of RTL represented the Brodsky Organization in Nut Bar’s deal, while Aylin Gucalp and Cassie Durand of CBRE represented the tenant. CBRE did not respond to a request for comment.

“Demand continues to concentrate around highly visible corners in established neighborhoods, where retailers can immediately tap into existing foot traffic and co-tenancy,” RTL’s Rapuano said in a statement.

Amanda Schiavo

Urban Outfitters to Open 15K-SF Store at 575 Fifth Avenue

Clothing retailer Urban Outfitters is moving one of its stores a few blocks uptown to 575 Fifth Avenue

The popular clothing store chain, owned by retail brand corporation Urbn, is currently in 22,238 square feet at 521 Fifth Avenue

Urban Outfitters will relocate that store to its new 15,345-squarefoot space at 575 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of East 47th Street and Fifth Avenue.

News of the relocation comes as the 40-story office tower at 575 Fifth Avenue enters into new ownership. Real estate investment firm Sovereign Partners is in contract to buy the 544,000-squarefoot property from Beacon Capital Partners and MetLife for around $385 million.

Tim Duffy of the McDevitt Company represented Urban Outfitters in the store deal, while Cushman & Wakefield’s Sean Moran, Patrick O’Rourke, Steven Soutendijk and Catherine Merck brokered the deal for building ownership.

The C&W team that represented the building was able to incorporate a former L’Oreal lower-level cafeteria spanning 12,574 square feet into the ground floor’s 2,771-square-foot retail space.

The retail asking rent at 575 Fifth Avenue was $3 million per year, which breaks down to around $625 per square foot for the ground floor and $100 per square foot for the lower level.

The 12-year term also aligns with the end of the lease for the building’s corner retailer, French sports fashion brand Lacoste Work has already begun on the space, with delivery to Urban Outfitters expected this summer for their own buildout as they target an opening in the first quarter of 2027.

Urban Outfitters was also able to extend its deal at 521 Fifth Avenue through that first quarter to align with this strategy. It was also made easier as Soutendijk, Moran and O’Rourke represent 521 Fifth Avenue.

The current retail asking rent at 521 Fifth Avenue is $500 per square foot for the ground floor and $125 per square foot for the second floor. —L.W.

COUNTERINTUITIVE

NYC Commercial Rent Regulation Will Hurt the Businesses It Aims to Protect

As the New York State Legislature considers legislation to impose rent regulation on commercial properties, the proposal is gaining attention as a potential lifeline for small businesses. It may sound like a solution. It isn’t.

After more than four decades working across nearly every corner of New York’s retail ecosystem — as a broker, an attorney, a landlord and a tenant — I can say with confidence: This proposal is likely to do more harm than good. I don’t take that position lightly. I currently own and operate retail businesses in Brooklyn and have previously been part owner of multiple food establishments in New York City. I’ve sat on both sides of the table. And, even as a tenant, I oppose this legislation.

In my own experience, the landlord-tenant relationship — when both parties are operating in good faith — functions effectively. As a tenant, I’ve always paid rent on time and run strong businesses. In return, my landlords have consistently renewed my leases at reasonable terms. The only time I was not renewed was when a landlord chose to redevelop — a legitimate and necessary part of maintaining and improving the city’s building stock. That’s not a broken system. That’s a functioning one. Ironically, the businesses this legislation aims to protect may be the ones most negatively impacted.

If property owners lose flexibility at the end of a lease, they will become more cautious about who they rent to in the first place. Mom-and-pop tenants — who often carry more risk than national operators — may find themselves shut out before they even get started.

It also disrupts something essential to a healthy retail ecosystem: turnover. Not all turnover is bad. In fact, it’s what allows new businesses to enter the market, test

HOME TRUTHS

concepts and grow.

Restricting that natural cycle makes it harder — not easier — for new entrepreneurs to find space.

As someone actively leasing space for my own businesses, I can say plainly: This kind of legislation could make it harder for operators like me to secure locations.

From the ownership side, the logic is equally straightforward. Good tenants — those who pay on time and operate responsibly — are valuable and are typically renewed. Problematic tenants are not. That discretion matters. Buildings are ecosystems. One poorly run business can impact an entire property. Owners need the ability to make decisions that protect the long-term health of their assets. In over 40 years, I can’t recall a situation where I couldn’t reach a fair agreement with a good tenant. The current system already rewards stability and performance.

There’s also a broader financial reality that can’t be ignored.

Many rent-regulated residential buildings in New York City rely heavily on ground-floor retail income to remain viable. If you cap or suppress retail rents, you’re not just affecting storefronts — you’re putting additional pressure on already strained housing assets. That translates directly into lower property values. And when property values decline, so do tax revenues.

Real estate taxes often account for 25 percent to 35 percent of a building’s rent roll. Reduce retail income, and

you reduce assessed values. Reduce assessed values, and you shrink the tax base.

At a time when New York City is facing significant fiscal challenges, this is not a small issue. It’s a structural one. Neighborhoods are not static. They evolve — and retail must evolve with them.

Property owners play a key role in that process by curating and upgrading tenant mixes over time. Limiting that flexibility risks locking neighborhoods into outdated retail patterns, ultimately making commercial corridors less vibrant and less competitive. That’s not preservation. That’s stagnation.

Finally, there’s the practical reality: This will be litigated. Heavily.

Any system that introduces rent regulation into the commercial sector will create disputes, ambiguity and delay. The result? More legal costs, more friction and more uncertainty — for both landlords and tenants. The biggest winners won’t be small businesses. They’ll be attorneys.

Lawmakers’ efforts are well intentioned. But policy needs to be judged by outcomes, not intentions. This proposal risks reducing opportunities for small businesses, weakening property values, straining the city’s tax base, and creating a more rigid, less dynamic retail environment.

New York’s retail landscape doesn’t need more constraints. It needs flexibility, investment and the ability to adapt. This legislation moves us in the wrong direction.

James Wacht is managing principal at Lee & Associates NYC.

New York’s Housing Connect Lottery System Urgently Needs Reform

In 2024, the NYC Housing Connect lottery system received approximately 6 million applications for roughly 10,000 available affordable units. Competition was so fierce that each applicant had just a 0.2 percent chance of securing a place to call home.

This online portal, created to streamline the process for applicants and create a more equitable one-stop shop for application management, is clearly overwhelmed. Although the system may now be easier for city agencies to manage, it continues to create frustration, inefficiency and lost opportunities for tenants and property owners.

Units sit empty while families and individuals wait for housing, paperwork piles up, and opaque processes slow the very system that was designed to deliver homes. After years of incremental changes, Housing Connect is long overdue for comprehensive reforms that ensure it works efficiently, transparently and fairly for everyone involved.

The human cost of the system’s inefficiencies is stark.

A recent case study by the New York Housing Conference found that it took 27 months to lease 180 newly constructed affordable apartments in the Bronx — including 18 months after the lottery had closed — even after the building had a temporary certificate of occupancy and was safe for residents to inhabit.

Tens of thousands of applications were generated, yet troubling bottlenecks in eligibility review and documentation slowed every step of the process, causing would-be tenants to wait more than two years for desperately needed, high-quality new units.

This isn’t just an abstract bureaucratic quirk. It takes nearly four times longer to lease affordable housing units in New York City compared to units financed by other housing

agencies statewide and across the country.

Delays caused by extended lease-up timelines reduced the financial stability of city affordable housing projects by an estimated $4.6 million between 2019 and 2024, or roughly $386,000 per impacted development. Building owners are forced to cover these unexpected gaps with additional financing or subsidies, further straining public resources and slowing future development.

The goals of improving Housing Connect are shared across city government and within the affordable housing community. But success requires coordination — not just within the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), but citywide. Clarifying responsibility and minimizing unnecessary steps between city agencies would immediately improve outcomes for renters and owners alike.

Modern problems demand modern tools. The digital infrastructure that supports Housing Connect must be upgraded, so applications can be processed quickly and intelligently. Imagine a platform in which applicants upload verification documents once and reuse them across multiple opportunities, where redundant income certifications disappear, and where unnecessary pre-lease reviews are eliminated without undermining compliance.

Automation, real-time status updates, and a centralized repository for documentation would reduce back-andforth for families and staff and keep the process moving. Reforming the system also means rethinking how units

are marketed and filled. Units should be made available to all applicant types in parallel, verification timelines should be streamlined, and applicants should be limited to one unit size per building to reduce administrative bottlenecks.

A system in which applicants can hold multiple overlapping offers creates confusion and slows occupancy. Clear consequences for unwarranted refusals and an end to openended appeals would incentivize accountability and speed decision-making.

We must also simplify the requirements placed on applicants. Many documentation burdens — from asset verification to digital wallet account statements — are onerous, offer little insight into actual eligibility, and discourage families from applying in the first place.

Voucher holders and unhoused individuals deserve a process that moves at the pace of urgency, not bureaucracy. Property managers should be empowered to accept direct referrals from shelters to expedite placements.

These are practical reforms that would have an immediate impact on families in need.

Affordable housing is a shared mission, and every delay is yet one more day that an individual or family goes without a home. The New York State Association for Affordable Housing is fully committed to being a partner in this effort. We believe that with collaboration, innovation and determination, Housing Connect can finally deliver on its promise of fairness, efficiency and expedience for all New Yorkers.

Carlina Rivera is president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing and a former member of the New York City Council from Manhattan.

Office Leases of the Week

A platform company within the Apollo Global Management umbrella inked a 10-year, nearly 50,000-square-foot office lease across two full floors at 590 Madison Avenue

The deal comes after Apollo, an alternative asset management firm, finalized a nearly 100,000-square-foot lease last April at the RXR-owned building, spanning the 10th through 13th floors. The new lease will cover

Eldridge Industries

Eldridge Industries, a Miami-based asset management and insurance holding company owned by billionaire businessman Todd Boehly, signed a roughly 20,000-square-foot lease at 125 West 57th Street on Billionaires’ Row in Midtown.

The 30-story office tower is owned by Alchemy-ABR Investment Partners and Cain International. The length of the lease and the asking rent were not disclosed, but

the entire 14th and 15th floors.

This new lease will be part of an initiative to consolidate Apollo’s New York City employee headcount within 590 Madison and its headquarters at 9 West 57th Street, according to a source. Apollo will relocate employees to 590 Madison from 3 Bryant Park, and it will continue to move over employees part of its platform companies from current offices at 1350 and 1370 Avenue of the Americas

The exact asking rent was not disclosed, but the source did note that the asking rent would be “north of $120 per square foot.”

RXR’s William Elder and Daniel Birney handled the deal in-house, while Michael

the average asking rent for office space in Midtown during the first quarter of 2026 was $81.43 per square foot, according to a report from Newmark. In fact, the average office asking rent along Billionaires’ Row can exceed $300 per square foot, according to data from New York Offices

The asking rent certainly exceeded $300 per square foot at the nearby Soloviev Groupowned 9 West 57th Street, which signed a “record-setting lease deal” in early April at $327.50 per square foot. Gonzalo Hevia Baillères, the grandson of late businessman Alberto Baillères González, signed a 10-year,

Wellen, Michael Geoghegan and Stephen Siegel from CBRE represented the tenant.

“As a premier Midtown asset, 590 Madison offers the quality, location and tenant experience that today’s leading companies demand, and we look forward to building on this momentum,” Elder said in a statement.

The name of the Apollo affiliate that signed the new lease was not disclosed.

Spokespeople for CBRE and Apollo did not respond to requests for comment. — Amanda Schiavo

Global architecture and design firm Populous is securing its foundations at RXR’s Starrett-Lehigh Building

The design outfit opted to renew its current 10,158-square-foot lease by another three years at 601 West 26th Street and tack on another 6,500 square feet for seven years, according to the landlord. The transaction brings Populous’ total footprint at the 19-story Chelsea office building to 16,658 square feet on the 14th floor.

CFC USA

13,065 Relocation

CFC USA, the U.S. arm of a London-based specialist insurance provider for cybersecurity protection, signed a 13,065-square-foot lease at Haymes Investment Company’s 5 Penn Plaza in Midtown.

The seven-year deal represents a relocation for CFC USA, which currently has its New York City offices at 48 Wall Street in the Financial District. It’s unclear when the insurance firm will make the move to its new office on the second floor of 5 Penn.

Populous is known for designing major sports and entertainment venues such as Las Vegas’ The Sphere, New York City’s Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, and London’s Wembley Stadium

RXR’s Denise Rivera represented the landlord in-house, while Populous did not work with a broker. The parties declined to disclose asking rents, but Chelsea office asking rents averaged $82.27 per square foot in the first quarter of 2026, according to Cushman & Wakefield data.

“We’ve reached an exciting milestone where we’ve outgrown our current space, and there was never any question about

The asking rent was not disclosed, but the average asking rent for office space in Midtown was $84.74 per square foot in the first quarter of 2026, according to data from Colliers

“We’re thrilled to welcome CFC to 5 Penn,” Stephen Haymes, managing partner at Haymes Investment, said in a statement. “Their decision to lease space here shows how strongly the building is resonating with tenants and reflects the continued demand we are seeing from growth-oriented companies seeking a high-quality, well-located workplace.”

Joseph DeRosa and Taylor Walker of

5,063-square-foot lease on the 50th floor. Alchemy and Cain declined to comment, while a spokesperson for Eldridge Industries did not respond to a request for comment.

Completed in early 2026, 125 West 57th Street spans 173,000 square feet and features a Gensler-designed amenity floor with a lounge, a coffee area and private phone booths.

“There hasn’t been a new office building built in this market in decades, and we thought it’d be a good idea,” Brian Ray, managing partner and co-founder of AlchemyABR, previously told CO about developing an office asset on Billionaires’ Row. —A.S.

where we wanted to expand,” Jonathan Mallie, Populous’ global director, said in a statement.

Populous arrived at the landmarked office property in 2019 from its previous home at 475 Madison Avenue

“RXR is very pleased that Starrett-Lehigh has such a diverse and creative roster of tenants, including Populous,” William Elder, executive vice president and managing director of RXR’s New York City division, said in a statement. “We look forward to their continued tenancy.” — Emily Davis

CBRE represented the tenant, while JLL’s Mitch Konsker, Kristen Morgan, Christine Colley, Greg Wang, Dan Turkewitz and Kate Roush represented building ownership.

“5 Penn anticipated the demands of tenants today with a hospitality-level amenity platform that prioritizes wellness, collaboration and tenant experience,” Konsker said in a statement. “Our recent leasing success is evidence that putting people at the center of workplace design truly drives demand.”

Tenants at 5 Penn include crypto security firm Fireblocks and SiriusXM Radio —A.S.

Office Leases of the Week

Private Export Funding Corporation

9,577 Relocation

Financial institution Private Export

Funding Corporation (PEFCO) moved to a 9,577-square-foot office at Jack Resnick & Sons’ 880 Third Avenue in Midtown East.

PEFCO, which provides financing for exports from the U.S., signed a 13-year lease across the 18-story office building’s entire ninth floor, according to Resnick. The firm relocated to its new space last month from its previous spot 11 blocks away at 675 Third

Nonprofit Finance Fund

Avenue

Bradford Allen’s Gordon Ogden and Ava Beganovic represented PEFCO in the transaction, while Resnick was represented in-house by Brett Greenberg and Adam Rappaport

PEFCO also received the benefit of a termination fee from its previous landlord, Ogden told Commercial Observer.

“They gained the efficiency of a new full floor, to reposition their business over a transit node at East 53rd Street and Lexington and Third Avenue,” Ogdon said. “They are excited to have Resnick as their new landlord.”

Resnick did not disclose asking rents, but office asking rents in Midtown averaged

$84.74 per square foot in the first quarter of 2026, according to a Colliers market report.  Other office tenants at the Plaza District office building include Columbia University, financial planner Beech Hill Securities and investment firm EOS Management. Retail space at the property is anchored by TD Bank, Gregorys Coffee and Pret a Manger —E.D.

There were several new deals completed at Jack Resnick & Sons’ 18-story office building at 880 Third Avenue in Midtown East last week. In addition to financial institution

Private Export Funding Corporation’s deal for 9,577 square feet on the building’s entire ninth floor, Nonprofit Finance Fund signed a 12-year lease for 8,393 square feet across the entire 12th floor of the property, according to the landlord.

FHS Risk Management

6,655 Renewal

In yet another deal at Jack Resnick & Sons’ 880 Third Avenue in Midtown East last week, insurance consulting firm FHS Risk Management renewed its offices at the 18-story building between East 53rd and East 54th streets.

FHS, which provides outsourced risk management, insurance consulting and claims advocacy for the real estate, construction and hospitality industries, signed a seven-year lease extension for its 6,655 square

8,393 Relocation Raiden Electric

6,577 Relocation

Raiden Electric, a privately owned local union electrical contractor, is moving its offices uptown to AFIAA’s 45 West 45th Street in Midtown.

The contractor inked a 10-year lease for 6,577 square feet, which spans the entire 15th floor of the 16-story Midtown office tower, according to tenant broker Avison Young Alan Zengo, principal at Raiden Electric, told Commercial Observer that the new lease at 45 West 45th Street reflects the company’s continued growth and long-term

Founded in 1980, Nonprofit Finance Fund aims to help nonprofits strengthen their financial resources to deliver social impact, according to its website. The company will relocate to 880 Third Avenue this summer from 5 Hanover Square in the Financial District.

Resnick did not provide the asking rent, but office asking rents in Midtown averaged $81.43 per square foot in the first quarter of 2026, according to Newmark data.

Open Impact Real Estate’s Lindsay Orenstein, Stephen Powers and Sasha Perlov represented the tenant, while Resnick was represented in-house by Brett

feet on the 14th floor of the property, according to Resnick.

Founded in 1995, FHS has been a tenant at 880 Third Avenue for more than two decades, the landlord said.

Savills’ Zev Holzman and Jordan Kaliner represented the tenant in its renewal, while Resnick was represented in-house by Brett Greenberg and Adam Rappaport

Jonathan Resnick, president of Jack Resnick & Sons, said the landlord is “pleased” to continue its “long-standing relationship with FHS.” He added that the transaction reflects “the resurgence of the Third

commitment to the city.

“As our team and project portfolio expand, this space will support our operations and allow us to better serve our clients across the region,” Zengo said in a statement. “We expect to begin our transition in the coming months.”

Cushman & Wakefield’s Harley Dalton, Pierce Hance and Samantha Perlman represented landlord AFIAA in the negotiations, while Avison Young’s Patrick Steffens, Martin Cottingham and Michael Gottlieb worked on behalf of Raiden Electric.

The deal marks a relocation and expansion for Raiden Electric, as the organization is currently located at 11 Broadway in the

Greenberg and Adam Rappaport

“We’re pleased to have Nonprofit Finance Fund make 880 Third its new home,” Jonathan Resnick, president of Jack Resnick & Sons, said in a statement. “This transaction reflects the resurgence of the Third Avenue corridor and the overall strength of the Midtown office market.”

Resnick’s Manhattan portfolio currently includes over 5 million square feet of commercial office and retail space, according to the firm. Spokespeople for Nonprofit Finance Fund and Open Impact did not respond to requests for comment. —E.D.

Avenue corridor and the overall strength of the Midtown office market.”

Resnick did not provide the asking rent for the renewal, but office asking rents in Midtown averaged $84.74 per square foot in the first quarter of 2026, according to a report from Colliers

Spokespeople for FHS and Savills did not respond to requests for comment. —E.D.

Financial District.

Avison Young declined to disclose the asking rent for the new space, but overall Midtown office asking rents averaged $76.96 per square foot in the first quarter of 2026, according to C&W data.

AFIAA purchased 45 West 45th Street in 2019 for more than $125 million from Vanbarton Group. Office tenants include health care marketing firm 120/80 Group —E.D.

PARTNERINSIGHTS

Navigating Complexity: Walker & Dunlop Closes $23.8B Across 158 Deals

In today’s commercial real estate market, capital hasn’t disappeared—it’s become more disciplined: prioritizing structure, certainty, and luxury-quality assets with resilient cash flow and long-term value.

Transactions that once moved efficiently now require deeper analysis, tighter execution, and greater alignment between sponsors and capital providers. In this environment, the ability to structure and close a deal has become just as important as sourcing the capital itself.

Walker & Dunlop Capital Markets Institutional Advisory, led out of New York by Senior Managing Directors Aaron Appel, Keith Kurland, Jonathan Schwartz, Adam Schwartz, Sean Reimer, and Dustin Stolly, has been operating squarely on that principle. Over the past year, the team has advised on and/or closed $23.8 billion of debt and equity transactions across 158 deals nationwide.

“Execution is what defines this market,” says Appel. “Capital is out there, but getting a transaction from start to finish requires a much more deliberate and structured approach than it did in prior cycles.”

A Market Where Precision Matters

Liquidity remains in the system, but it is increasingly disciplined. Lenders are more selective, and capital providers are focused on sponsorship, basis, and long-term viability.

This results in a fragmented landscape—one where capital is abundant, but quality is sought after.

Walker & Dunlop has remained active across all major asset classes, including multifamily, office and office-to-residential conversions, industrial, hospitality, and large-scale development. Over the past year, the team has worked with more than 75 capital providers and over 100 clients, aligning transactions with the right capital sources in a highly selective market.

“There’s still significant capital looking to be deployed,” says Kurland. “But it has to be the right deal, with the right structure, at the right basis. That’s where we’re spending our time.”

Executing Across Some of the Market’s Most Complex Transactions

Even amid market headwinds, Walker & Dunlop has continued to execute on large, highly structured transactions across the country.

The Institutional Advisory team arranged a $778.6 million construction loan for the conversion of 111 Wall Street in Manhattan, the largest single-building office-to-residential conversion financing completed in New York City at the time. The assignment also included an $88.4 million C-PACE extension, bringing total capitalization to $867 million and requiring coordination across construction risk, adaptive reuse underwriting, and sustainability financing.

In Miami, the team closed a $464.5 million acquisition and predevelopment loan for a site on the water in Brickell, the largest land acquisition financing ever completed in the market, structured around complex entitlement and future

development considerations.

In Brooklyn, Walker & Dunlop arranged a $285 million bridge loan for Greenpoint Central, a newly built multifamily asset incorporating both market-rate and affordable housing units. In Newark, the team structured a fully integrated capital stack for 22 Fulton Street, combining construction financing, tax credit equity, preferred equity, and a forward permanent loan within a Qualified Opportunity Zone development.

“These transactions require a different level of coordination today,” says Stolly. “You’re working across multiple capital sources and solving for risk in real time. That’s where experience becomes critical.”

Hospitality: Opportunity with a Higher Bar for Execution Hospitality has re-emerged as an area of investor interest, but it remains one of the most execution-sensitive sectors in today’s market.

Walker & Dunlop recently arranged $371.5 million in financing for The Nashville EDITION Hotel & Residences, a 28-story development combining a luxury hotel with branded residential units. The transaction required alignment between real estate fundamentals and hotel operations, along with institutional capital to underwrite a mixed-use hospitality asset.

“Hospitality is performing, particularly in high-growth markets, but it requires a much more nuanced underwriting approach,” says Jay Morrow, senior managing director of Hospitality at Walker & Dunlop. “You have to understand both the real estate and the operating business to get these deals financed.”

Morrow adds that capital remains active in the sector, but far more selective than in prior years. “There’s strong interest, but execution comes down to how well the deal is positioned and structured. That’s where we’re focused.”

Structuring Capital for Today’s Environment

Across all asset classes, capital structures are layered and increasingly strategic. Transactions require combinations of senior debt, preferred equity, mezzanine capital, and alternative financing tools.

Walker & Dunlop’s Institutional Advisory team has focused on delivering solutions that reflect these dynamics—structuring capital stacks that are both executable and aligned with long-term asset performance.

“Our clients are navigating more complexity than ever before,” says Jonathan Schwartz. “Our role is to bring clarity to that process and deliver a structure that actually works in today’s market.”

Positioned for What’s Ahead

As the market continues to recalibrate, opportunities are emerging through repricing, refinancing needs, and capital dislocation. Sponsors with access to flexible financing solutions are increasingly well positioned to act on those opportunities.

“We’re in a market where experience and execution matter more than ever,” says Adam Schwartz. “There’s capital available, and there are opportunities—but connecting the two requires a very intentional approach.”

With $23.8 billion in transaction volume over the past year and a team actively executing across asset classes and markets, Walker & Dunlop Capital Markets Institutional Advisory continues to play a leading role in helping clients navigate complexity and close deals in a challenging environment.

2026

It takes a lot of drive

ne sort of feels that, to navigate the finance landscape in 2026, one needs to have the dexterity of Mario Andretti.

Certainly, there is the need for speed. Private lenders have been tearing up the fast lane for years. Likewise, banks — after a very long time in first gear — decided last year that they also wanted to feel the rush.

If you were a borrower, you had an abundance of choice. The economy seemed to be humming. Liberation Day tariffs didn’t bite as hard as some feared. Job growth seemed more or less steady. There was demand for housing. Retail seemed to have turned around. The words “data centers” and “industrial outdoor storage” lit a fire in many eyes.

But then…

One after another, obstacles started appearing on the road. The chairman of the Federal Reserve was put under investigation by the Department of Justice for seemingly political reasons. Dreams of a big interest rate cut were dashed. The Persian Gulf exploded, and the inflation warning light on everyone’s dashboard went berserk. Recession looked much more plausible than it did six months ago.

Yet the lenders on this year’s Power Finance have steered their

way through crises before. And they can smell opportunity like it’s high octane.

Just look at what they did last year: There was the $10 billion worth of business that Starwood’s Jeff DiModica, Lorcain Egan and Dennis Schuh completed, including for a $500 million data center in Utah and a $500 million industrial portfolio in New York.

There’s the $23 billion that Blackstone originated on deals spanning the planet, including the United Kingdom’s very first CMBS deal.

Or there’s the $87 billion J.P. Morgan Chase injected into the debt market last year — we told you banks were back. (Chase was the lender Blackstone turned to when they wanted to finance the $3.98 billion purchase of Safe Harbor Marinas. They’re the lender’s lender.)

All the while, the wheeling and dealing has been facilitated by a ground crew of brokers and special servicers who not only beat previous records last year, but who have been quietly gearing up for the properties hitting walls of pending maturity.

But, to a certain extent, we don’t want to tease too much. Let our rankings and write-ups tell the story. These are the drivers of real estate finance — and they are revving up for more.

This package was written by Andrew Coen, Cathy Cunningham, Larry Getlen, Brian Pascus, Zoe Rosenberg, Amanda Schiavo and Patrick Sisson. It was edited by Cunningham, Tom Acitelli and Max Gross. Skip Card copy-edited it. Jim Sewastynowicz edited the photos, and Jeff Cuyubamba designed it.

1Michelle Herrick and Brian Baker Head of commercial real estate at J.P. Morgan Chase (commercial banking); global head of commercial mortgages at J.P. Morgan Securities (global investment banking)

Last year’s rank: 4

There are heavy hitters, and then there are heavy hitters.

Last year, J.P. Morgan originated a hefty $87 billion in loans. Further, in a market that ebbed and flowed, the firm remained a constant, stalwart lending force, providing liquidity to borrowers and communities from coast to coast, while also not shying away from complex financings or large-ticket deals.

Competition and volatility largely defined the past year, but J.P. Morgan didn’t waiver, leaning into its client relationships and partnerships, and acting as a strategic adviser while delivering certainty, speed of execution, creativity and the full strength of its balance sheet to borrowers big and small.

As such, “momentum” is the word Michelle Herrick would use to describe this past year, both for the industry and J.P. Morgan’s platform supporting it. “It was nice to see the transaction volume and the capital flows going in a more normalized way,” she said. “We’re always investing in our people, our product expansion, and our technology for a low-friction process for our clients, and 2025 was the first year where we really got to see how those three things function together. I was thrilled to get the positive feedback that we did from the market, and so I’d say both our industry and our platform have a lot of momentum.”

Notable deals last year included a $3.98 billion acquisition financing for Blackstone Infrastructure Partners’ purchase of Safe Harbor Marinas, the largest marina and superyacht services platform in the U.S.; $425 million for Related Companies’ first luxury residential development in Jersey City, Harborside Plaza; the preservation and rehabilitation of Bay View PACT in Brooklyn, a 1,600-unit affordable housing development, through a $196.5 million agency loan, a $198 million historic tax credit investment, $23.7 million historic tax credit bridge loan and $7.5 million letter of credit; a $191.2 million financing package for Bradley Ridge Apartments in Colorado Springs, the largest affordable housing deal in Colorado history; and a $102 million construction loan for Casa Adelante, the largest affordable housing project in San Francisco’s Mission District.

On the CMBS side, J.P. Morgan’s activities include a $2.85 billion SASB securitization for Blackstone’s Aria Resort and Casino and Vdara Hotel and Spa on the Vegas strip in the BX 2025-ARIA deal, part of a $3.45 billion whole loan; and a $2.85 billion financing for Tishman Speyer’s the Spiral in New York in the HY 2025-SPRL deal.

Oh, and did we mention the $38 billion construction financing package for Vantage Data Centers’ development of two large hyperscale campuses totaling 2,250 megawatts? All in a day’s work for J.P. Morgan.

“While there was some carryover of 2024 market issues into the beginning of 2025, as the year went on deal activity became more active and the competition became more aggressive, but we ended the year well in terms of all of the metrics: revenue, originations, client growth, all those things,” Brian Baker said.

The recent volatility from the Iran war has caused many lenders to proceed with caution, and the market has moved from a high- volume, benign, tight-spread environment to a low-volume one with spreads moving considerably wider. Not J.P. Morgan, though.

“We never root for volatility, but we try to always be

prepared for it,” Baker said. “It has tended to benefit our market share and our client impact, because while other firms get a little careful — they go to the sidelines or pull back — it’s culturally embedded in us to be there for our clients. Amid the volatility, we closed two significant deals [including the $4.3 billion financing package for One Beverly Hills]. I think things will settle back to a benign environment. There’s a lot of capital, interested investors, a lot of clients who want to deploy money in the real estate space, and we’ll be there.”

“In periods of volatility, we have a clear playbook to support our clients,” Herrick said. “Our clients expect consistency of capital and client experience. That’s what we deliver in any environment, and we contributed a significant amount of debt capital to support this industry in 2025 with no plans to change any of that commitment. We’re also scanning for unusual opportunities that create additional value, long term, for our platform.”

J.P. Morgan’s Community Development Banking

team supports efforts to increase the nation’s affordable housing supply, and last year it deployed a considerable $10 billion in debt and equity to create and preserve more than 60,000 affordable units. It was also awarded the Freddie Mac affordable license last year, which “aligns very well with a mission that is critical to our firm,” Herrick said. “If you think about Freddie and Fannie and the stability and liquidity they’re providing to help housing be more affordable for the country, that is an area where we are incredibly well aligned as the largest multifamily lender and also the largest bank. It’s an area where we spent a lot of time, proudly, in `25, and we’ll only work hard to figure out how to do more as we go forward in 2026.”

As two final reasons to celebrate, J.P. Morgan opened its new global HQ at 270 Park Avenue last year, and also shared plans for a 3 million-square-foot landmark tower in London, which is pegged to contribute $13 billion over six years to the local economy, and create 7,800 jobs across construction and other industries. —C.C.

Your blueprint for success starts here.

Kara McShane

Head of commercial real estate at Wells Fargo

Last year’s rank: 1

For Kara McShane, 2025 was an “intentional” year.

“When I stepped into the role in 2020, the goal was to build a more collaborative, nimble and resilient platform that could perform through cycles,” McShane said. “In 2025, that meant being intentional in our decision-making — staying coordinated and disciplined and being clear about our focus in an ever-changing landscape.”

Wells Fargo was also intentional about what it didn’t do, McShane said: “We didn’t chase volume for its own sake, and we didn’t stretch on structure just to ‘win’ in a crowded market.”

Balance sheet originations totaled $41 billion, up 200 percent year-over-year, spanning term, construction, commercial and industrial lending. Its capital markets originations hit $34 billion — $21.3 billion of CMBS and $11.3 billion of agency loans — a 50 percent increase year-over-year.

McShane’s platform won in plenty of ways. Under her leadership, Wells Fargo continued to demonstrate scale and consistency, maintaining top positions in key lending and securitization markets while executing some of the industry’s most buzzed-about transactions.

It was the top-ranked global CMBS bookrunner and bank agency lender, and also took the crown for real estate loan syndications and real estate gaming, lodging and leisure. Wells Fargo also was the No. 2 agency bookrunner last year, and the No. 3 CRE CLO bookrunner.

As for notable deals, where to start? To name but a

Corporate and Investment Banking

few: Wells Fargo provided the $3.15 billion financing for StuyTown/Peter Cooper Village in New York; acted as lead adviser and a lender in Blackstone Infrastructure’s $5.65 billion acquisition of Safe Harbor Marinas; provided the $1.6 billion construction loan for Related Companies and Oxford’s 70 Hudson Yards; served as sole structuring agent and joint bookrunner for One Five One’s $1.3 billion Green Bond SASB financing; and priced the $1.4 billion floating-rate BX 2025-BCAT, secured by 67 industrial assets.

In a competitive year, “our biggest advantage is our ability to execute decisively across market conditions — deploying balance sheet, providing capital markets solutions and advice, and partnering in real time, while maintaining underwriting discipline,” McShane said. “We have size, expertise, a full suite of product offerings, and the ability to deliver and execute for our clients.”

The firm has spent years building a deeply integrated model across CRE and the broader investment banking platform, which allows it to move quickly and stay aligned when markets are selective or dislocated, McShane said.

The platform has more than $150 billion in total commitments across the corporate and investment banking CRE platform today, with multifamily representing 28 percent of its book ($37 billion) and industrial 19.6 percent. Data centers comprise roughly 2 percent of its book, a $3 billion exposure.

“In a crowded or volatile environment, dependability and trust matter more than ever,” she said. “We don’t try

3

Tim Johnson and Michael Wiebolt

to win every deal — we focus on relationships and structures that perform through cycles.”

As for 2026, McShane’s teams are busier than ever.

“From a numbers perspective, the pipeline is up materially from this time last year,” McShane said. “The 2026 pipeline reflects disciplined engagement — active where fundamentals are strong, and selective where risk remains elevated. The common thread is earlier, more substantial dialogue. Clients want partners who can help them navigate uncertainty, think holistically about the range of solutions, and execute flawlessly.”—C.C.

Global head at Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies and CEO and chairman at Blackstone Mortgage Trust; global chief investment officer of Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies

Last year’s rank: 2

Blackstone found even more ways to add value to the market in 2025, which made for a “differentiated” year compared to the previous year, Michael Wiebolt said. “Last year, markets were open and liquid, activity was strong, and one of the things that I’m most proud of is the different ways in which we were able to deploy capital across strategies around the world.”

A rolling “stone” gathers no moss, and the firm didn’t let the grass grow beneath its feet, deploying 74 percent more capital than the previous year and originating $23 billion of loans across the globe, leaning into its high-conviction sectors as market fundamentals improved. But let’s dig in a little further: First, BREDS raised an $8 billion debt fund focused on opportunities in North America, Europe and Australia. It also completed significant acquisitions of loan pools from Atlantic Union Bank ($2 billion) and First Internet Bank ($870 million), and made mega loans including a $925 million debt facility for Colovore’s new liquid-cooled data centers.

BXMT not only launched a new net lease strategy focused on real estate inked to essential retail, but it also issued over $4 billion of corporate and securitized debt including two $1 billion CRE CLOs and the very first U.K. CMBS transaction by a commercial mortgage REIT. Blimey!

“Transaction activity certainly picked up last year, but we were also firing on all cylinders across a variety of different strategies,” Wiebolt said. “If you rewind a year ago, during the more dislocated periods of the market, we were very busy with loan pool purchase activity and also on the securities side.There was less origination activity because there were fewer transactions then, but then we started to see the direct lending opportunities pick up again in

Europe and the U.S., but we also didn’t see a slowdown in the other stuff. So the past year was a really neat environment to be able to do lots of different things at once.”

When the competition heated up, Blackstone was comfortable in a range of asset classes. “Everybody likes multifamily and industrial, but there are lots of ways to deploy capital in multifamily and industrial, and having the ability to choose from amongst them is a big competitive advantage,” Wiebolt said.

Blackstone has completed more than $23 billion of bank loan portfolio acquisitions since 2020, with $5 billion of transactions last year alone. “It takes a lot of resources to source and underwrite and manage, but we’ve got 170 people across Europe, the U.S. and Australia,” Wiebolt said. “We’ve got the scale and the resources to be able to pick and choose how we play in the high-conviction themes that we have around real estate sectors and asset classes here. It’s a huge part of the differentiator and a big part of our success last year.”

This year is already off to a roaring start, with roughly $10 billion in activity already wrapped and another $10 billion in the pipeline.

“We’re seeing a continuation of the themes we saw last year, with the majority of our activity in multifamily and logistics, in data centers and in loan pools,” Wiebolt said.

While Wiebolt chose “differentiated,” to describe Blackstone’s year, he almost chose “fun.”

“I am so blessed and fortunate to get to work with the most amazing people here,” he said. “I love the team here. Everybody cares so much, and everybody rows in the same direction every day. I don’t know what else I would do every day other than this because I love what we do and I love the people that I get to do it with. I just feel super blessed.”—C.C.

Silverstein Properties is a privately-held, full-service real estate development, investment and management firm that has developed, owned and managed more than 45 million square feet of office, residential, hotel, retail and mixed-use properties.

Investment Types

•All major property types in growing urban markets

•Flexible and efficient debt structures

•Senior loans of $75 million or more

•Subordinate loans of $50 million or more

•Shovel-ready groundup construction

•Heavy value-add repositioning

•Inventory loans on completed condo projects

•Rescue capital to borrowers

See

Why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the first time ever didn’t make our cut Wait and

The future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has remained in limbo since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, causing the two mortgage market giants’ influence to be severely diminished. Or, at least, difficult to assess.

The Trump administration laid the groundwork for a privatization of the government-sponsored enterprises in August 2025. Meetings were held with the six largest banks, and plans were put in motion to sell up to $30 billion in preferred shares of Fannie and Freddie on the open market.

The federal government’s conservatorship of the GSEs has been in place since September 2008, and the timing and specifics of ending that oversight remain up in the air. The speculation alone, however, has sparked concerns about a profit-driven plan that would lead to higher mortgage rates, stricter underwriting for multifamily loans, and higher loan-to-value ratios. Fannie

and Freddie face the prospects of a prolonged purgatory, since a potential privatization would require major regulatory changes with new capital requirements that could delay such a move past the completion of Trump’s term in January 2029.

Given the growing uncertainty of Fannie and Freddie under the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), we decided to take a wait-and-see attitude in this year’s Power Finance rankings, despite both agencies long being staples on the list. It was just five years ago that the GSEs took the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in Power Finance for the stability they brought to the multifamily market during the market volatility of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite major staff cuts at Fannie and Freddie last year implemented by Bill Pulte, director of the FHFA who was also named head of Fannie and Freddie in March 2025, both GSEs posted sluggish earnings in the 2025 fourth quarter. Fannie Mae’s fourth-quarter net income dropped

14.6 percent from the same period in 2024, with Freddie Mac’s falling similarly at 14 percent, and both agencies spiking their provisions for credit losses.

While Fannie and Freddie’s overall power in commercial real estate has been altered over the last year, each can still play an important role in tackling housing affordability, regardless of how the entities are constructed. Their impact is based largely on what policy actions are taken at the federal level.

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are essential to the availability of affordable mortgage credit across the country, for both single-family homeowners and the multifamily housing stock that serves millions of renters,” said Sam Chandan, director of the Chen Institute for Global Real Estate Finance at New York University. “The current conversation about the future of the enterprises is a consequential one, and it deserves a level of engagement that reflects their systemic importance.” —A.C.

$117

$89

$22

Scott Weiner

Partner and global head of real estate credit at Apollo

Last year’s rank: 3

Like a seasoned magician, Apollo’s Scott Weiner played tricks on the market in 2025 and still emerged as one of the premier players in CRE credit, to the tune of $24 billion.

Weiner surprised everyone in January when he led the charge to sell Apollo Real Estate Investment (ARI), the firm’s $9 billion publicly traded REIT, to Athene Holdings, Apollo’s $440 billion insurance subsidiary. Questions abounded — was Weiner cashing out of CRE credit?

Not at all. Like any good prestidigitator, Weiner was simply moving one pocket of capital he intends to play with at Apollo into another, mainly because he could.

“By no means are we getting out of the business. Those loans are still managed by me and my team,” Weiner said. He said the ARI portfolio has been undervalued by the public market for an extended period of time, and ARI is proposing a shareholder-friendly transaction by selling it to Athene.

“Athene has strong demand for CRE debt as an asset class, and is already familiar with those assets, so we believe it’s a win-win,” he added.

Weiner and his team won a lot of business in 2025. They originated $24 billion of CRE credit across 120 deals, with $15.4 billion of transactions occurring in the U.S., financing across 39 states in what was a record year of business for the firm.

“We were very active across property types and geographies, and that’s part of what makes the platform special,” said Weiner. “It wasn’t one deal, or a couple of deals, that led to our success this year, and it wasn’t one property type.”

Standout transactions included an $840 million takeout loan to finance the conversion of 25 Water Street in Manhattan, a $785 million acquisition loan for RXR and Elliott Management to buy 590 Madison in Manhattan, and an impressive $2.7 billion in U.S. data center pre-release, hyperscale construction.

Regardless if it’s ARI, Athene, Apollo’s fortress balance sheet or the capital on behalf of third-party investors, Weiner has his choice of roughly $75 billion across Apollo’s many channels for CRE credit investments.

“It’s a pretty powerful platform,” he said. —B.P.

Jordan Roeschlaub and Nick Scribani

Co-head of global debt and structured finance; vice chairman of global debt and structured finance at Newmark

Last year’s rank: 5

Newmark was full throttle once again in 2025.

Newmark’s non-agency debt volume jumped 76 percent from 2024 levels to $64 billion, while total originations soared 67 percent to $75 billion. The brokerage giant also maintained momentum with its  strategic advisory joint ventures business by facilitating $8 billion in equity raising.

Much of Newmark’s debt success in 2025 during largely unfavorable market conditions was planted in previous years.

“We built a really good pipeline based on just informing our clients over the last couple of years of where the market is and more importantly where it’s going,” Nick Scribani said. “We enjoyed a lot of success by being early to let people know that you have good assets, and the time may not be now but it’s coming, and you got to trust us when we tell you to pull the trigger.”

Newmark was ahead of the curve a few years ago on the growing demand for data centers and brokered a number of large loans in the sector throughout 2025.

A signature deal closed by Newmark in the past year involved a $7.1 billion construction loan for Blue Owl Capital, Crusoe and Primary Digital Infrastructure to fund the second phase of a 1.2-gigawatt AI data

center project in Abilene, Texas. The balance sheet loan, which closed in May 2025, was originated by a consortium of lenders led by J.P. Morgan Chase.

In late 2025, Newmark brokered a $835 million debt package to a joint venture between GFP Real Estate and Metro Loft for the refinance of its newly delivered office-to-residential conversion project at 25 Water Street in Manhattan’s Financial District. Apollo and GIC supplied the loan for the 1,320unit apartment building that was formerly a 1.1 million-square-foot office complex.

The office sector was also front and center in a number of Newmark’s deals in 2025, including a $630 million CMBS loan for Cain International and OKO Group to refinance 830 Brickell in Miami. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan led the refi for the 57-story building that houses Citadel as its anchor tenant.

Newmark is poised for more large transactions and to exceed its already high 2025 totals.

“We’ve consistently been ahead of where the market is and where the market’s going,” Jordan Roeschlaub said. “We’re not complacent and we’re always going to be achieving and figuring out how to stay in front of the heap, which takes a lot of effort because it’s a competitive space.” —A.C.

celebrate success

Bank of America is proud to support Maria Barry, Kenneth Cohen, and Brad Dubeck. Congratulations on your well-deserved recognition.

7Alex Cabria Director of real estate finance at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation

Last year’s rank: 8

Continuing with a strategy that could be described as creating a legacy without leaning on one, SMBC showed itself to be a flexible, successful lender amid the roller coaster of 2025. One key has been banking on a 5-year-old portfolio free of the constraints of long-term holds and bets placed in a radically different market environment. Instead, it’s built on adapting amid the recent era of uncertainty.

“We’re about thoughtful, prudent lending,” said Alex Cabria. “We’ve always tried to be constructive.”

Last year, SMBC saw $22 billion in origination volume, continuing a massive multi-year growth streak that hit $18.4 billion in loans last year, and $11.6 billion in 2023. Direct lending focused in large part on the industrial sector, including a handful of nine-figure nationwide deals such as providing funding to acquire a $650 million portfolio. But the group’s overall strategy — diversifying across core sectors with a focus on the most liquid assets, like multifamily, industrial, data centers and student

David Bouton

and

Joseph

Dyckman Co-heads of U.S. CRE finance at Citigroup

Last year’s rank: 7

The challenge with superlatives is maintaining them, and over the years Citigroup’s grip on certain lending sectors has remained tight.

Still the top affordable housing and conduit lender and a leader with data center and CMBS deals, Citigroup nonetheless scored significant marquee deals throughout 2025, including $3.05 billion for the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and a $1.15 billion SASB refinancing of Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Citigroup also financed trophy office assets like Brookfield’s 44-story 225 Liberty Street.

“It’s easy to be a good lender in a robust market,” said David Bouton, who leads CRE finance alongside Joseph Dyckman. “It’s much more difficult when there isn’t as much of a market. That’s when we like to provide leadership and liquidity, not just for our clients, but for the market overall.”

Last year was an active one across the business, with $4.7 billion in conduit originations alone. Nearly every single pillar of the franchise grew last year. In fact, a theme for 2025 was Citigroup’s use of its own balance sheet to provide liquidity to clients, especially in office. Bouton said their contrarian view on office started a few years ago, and they’ve continued to provide backstops for big deals ever since.

Citigroup also showed creativity within a space that’s becoming known for creative financing: data centers. Switch’s inaugural deal with Citigroup, worth $2.4 billion, was done during the market freeze caused by the emergence of Chinese AI model Deepseek.

“In other words, it wasn’t just another hyperscaler,” said Bouton. “They had a unique story about what their assets were. We had to come up with an investment thesis for the investors, and that’s where our expertise in the market really helped us through a difficult time.”

Citi also launched the first powered-shell data center SASB, and served as left lead for a $3.46 billion SASB financing for Blackstone’s QTS data center subsidiary last year. Especially notable since in 2021, Citi successfully underwrote and distributed the industry’s inaugural data center CMBS SASB, a $3.2 billion structured financing package that supported Blackstone’s take-private of QTS.

An incredibly balanced portfolio and internal support allows Citigroup to be agnostic in its financing strategy, and chase whatever solution makes the most sense. “Clients come to us with their very important signature transactions,” said Bouton. “But that’s sort of our DNA. We like to be innovative. We like to be creative, and we like to create liquidity.” —P.S.

“There’s always something going on,” said Cabria. “But, if you believe in the fundamentals and you know how real estate works, you manage through those things.” —P.S. Joseph Dyckman.

housing — led to a portfolio with a balanced mix of stabilized, transitional and construction exposure.

With so many credit funds flush with capital, Cabria saw an opportunity, surmising it might make sense to get more involved as banks were pulling out. Transaction volume ended up being driven by a warehouse/repo facility business within the real estate finance group launched in early 2025 to serve real estate owners, fund managers and global private capital platforms.

“It’s been nice seeing liquidity return,” said Cabria. “But it’s a focused liquidity, focused on top clients and top locations, and people are very selective.”

Lots of banks weren’t able to handle underwriting for deals that had dozens of assets spread across the country, but Cabria and his team found ways to craft portfolios with a balance of geographic risks, amid rocky trade policies, to create deals that were “good trades for everybody.”

A commitment to flexibility across loan sizes, structures, asset types and markets helped accommodate both large, complex transactions as well as bespoke financing in a market that became surprisingly competitive. Longterm relationships also helped SMBC stand out and seize on the upswing in activity that arrived last November.

BMO celebrates Paul Vanderslice for being named to the Power 50 list.

Thank you for Boldly Growing the Good in Business and Life. Congratulations to all the 2026 honorees on your achievement.

Kwasi Benneh

Global head of commercial real estate lending at Morgan Stanley

Last year’s rank: 6

Morgan Stanley achieved another year of high originations numbers in 2025, bolstered by a robust securitization market and a jump in balance sheet lending.

The investment bank executed $14.1 billion in U.S. originations and $17.3 billion globally, both nearly on par with 2024 levels. Around 70 percent of Morgan Stanley’s 2025 lending activity was derived in the CMBS market, but the firm has seen an uptick in balance sheet loans in early 2026. That suggests a more balanced split could be in store for this year.

“A year ago, balance sheet lenders were still very tentative, and during the past year they came back into the market in a big way,” Kwasi Benneh said. “A lot of what was driving that was net interest margin had been low over the last three years, and people needed to make some NIM for revenue. So the CRE markets being healed, asset valuations being reset, and the demand for NIM was a pretty good combination for balance sheet lenders to come into the market.”

One of Benneh’s signature deals closed during the past year involved Morgan Stanely leading a lending syndicate for a $850 million CMBS loan to fund Blackstone’s 49 percent acquisition of the 50-story 1345 Avenue of the Americas office tower. That closed in May 2025. The deal combined $650 million of CMBS with balance sheet future funding of $200 million, underscoring Morgan Stanley’s lending versatility.

Morgan Stanley also led a $2.4 billion CMBS loan in May 2025 to refinance Brookfield Properties’ Ala Moana Center in Honolulu, which marked the largest retail-focused SASB offering of 2025.

In addition to its flexibility closing both CMBS and balance sheet loans, Benneh said Morgan Stanley’s durability lies in its ability to originate on a global scale.

“I think the biggest distinguishing aspect of our platform is the global nature of it,” Benneh said. “Being able to dominate the CRE CMBS market in Europe, but also be pretty big here, I think just shows the strength of the platform.” —A.C.

Mark Romanczuk, Siddharth Shrivastava, Timothy Richards and Andrew White

Head of Americas real estate; head of Americas originations; co-head of conduit originations and alternatives; global head of real estate credit at Goldman Sachs

Last year’s rank: 9

After more than doubling its lending volume in 2024, Goldman Sachs continued to move the needle last year.

The investment bank executed $14.4 billion of CMBS originations in 2025, up 9 percent from 2024 and 140 percent from its 2023 output of $6 billion. Goldman Sachs was active both with floating-rate SASB and fixedrate conduit deals, demonstrating its versatility as a lending platform.

“Our edge is the breadth of the platform where we can deliver solutions in all all shapes and sizes in any market environment,” Mark Romanczuk said. “We can provide a tailored solution, rather than trying to fit an answer into one narrow product box.”

Goldman Sachs originated $11.7 billion of SASB loans in 2025, including six data center deals. One of the data center transactions involved a $735 million, five-year, fixed-rate loan closed in June 2025 for Vantage to refinance three single-tenant data centers in Goodyear, Ariz.

The past year was also a big one for Goldman Sachs on the office front, including a $630 million CMBS, fiveyear, fixed-rate loan for Cain and OKO Group to refinance 830 Brickell, a newly built 57-story trophy office tower in Miami. Goldman Sachs also co-originated with Wells Fargo a $229 million CMBS refinancing for a 28-story office Miami building at 801 Brickell in September sponsored by Monarch Alternative Capital and Tourmaline Capital Partners.

Goldman Sachs is on pace for another big year in 2026 after placing atop the CMBS league tables in the first quarter, in addition to seeing increased lending of balance sheet capital. A veteran CRE lending leadership team of Romanczuk, Sid Shrivastava, Tim Richards and Andrew White that has worked together for more than 15 years provides Goldman Sachs with another leg up amid increased competition.

“We have worked through complexity around asset structures and have worked through various market cycles over that period of time always with an eye toward providing creative solutions,” Romanczuk said. “There is a real sense of continuity for our partners, and I think we’re viewed as a steady set of hands.” —A.C.

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Strong Out of the Turn

In 2023, amid several failures and the worst financial crisis in a decade, some banks were left for dead in commercial real estate. But 2025 brought commercial banking back into the fold, and the nation’s largest money lenders produced the largest amount of capital markets business in the last 12 months.

Take J.P. Morgan Chase, for instance. Jamie Dimon’s firm originated $87 billion in loans last year, proving that established client relationships, multinational partnerships and a reputation founded on consistency, capital and the assurance of swift and safe execution will usually win the day in CRE lending spheres.

“In periods of volatility, we have a clear playbook to support our clients,” said Michelle Herrick, head of commercial real estate at J.P. Morgan Chase.

“Our clients expect consistency of capital and client experience,” Herrick continued. “That’s what we deliver in any environment, and we contributed a significant amount of debt capital to support

Big banks flexed their muscle in 2025

this industry in 2025 with no plans to change any of that commitment. We’re also scanning for unusual opportunities that create additional value, long term, for our platform.”

Then there’s Wells Fargo. Led by Kara McShane, head of commercial real estate at Wells Fargo Corporate and Investment Banking, this megabank originated $41 billion in balance sheet loans, up 200 percent year-over-year, and added another $21.3 billion of CMBS along with $11.3 billion in agency. Those are numbers debt funds simply can’t touch.

“In a crowded or volatile environment, dependability and trust matter more than ever,” said McShane. “We don’t try to win every deal — we focus on relationships and structures that perform through cycles.”

Then there is the venerable duo of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, a pair of investment banks that were vulnerable to collapse after the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis, but which appear stronger

than ever as we hit the back half of the 2020s.

Under the guidance of Kwasi Benneh, Morgan Stanley executed $14.1 billion in U.S. originations, with 70 percent of its lending brought from the hyper-complex CMBS market.

Goldman Sachs’ team of debt specialists — Mark Romanczuk, Siddharth Shrivastava, Timothy Richards and Andrew White — were all over the CMBS market in 2025, as well. The firm executed $14.4 billion of CMBS originations in 2025, an increase of 9 percent from 2024 and 140 percent from its 2023 output of $6 billion.

“Our edge is the breadth of the platform where we can deliver solutions in all all shapes and sizes in any market environment,” Romanczuk said. “We can provide a tailored solution, rather than trying to fit an answer into one narrow product box.”

With numbers and leadership like that, it doesn’t appear banks are going anywhere in the near future. —B.P.

Congratulations to Jordan Roeschlaub and Nick Scribani for being recognized on Commercial Observer’s Power Finance list.

As leaders in Debt, Equity and Structured Finance, their commitment to solving complex real estate challenges for their clients sets them apart. Newmark is proud to celebrate their success and congratulates all the honorees.

Jordan Roeschlaub Co-President, Debt & Structured Finance

Nick Scribani Vice Chairman, Debt & Structured Finance

Maria Barry, Ken Cohen and Brad Dubeck

Community development banking national executive; managing director and head of U.S. real estate

structured finance; senior vice president and New York and New Jersey market executive at Bank of America

Last year’s rank: 15

Bank of America displayed its versatility over the past year across commercial mortgage-backed securities, balance sheet lending and affordable housing.

The bank’s CMBS team led by Ken Cohen originated $10.6 billion, including $8.4 billion in single-asset, single-borrower deals and $2.2 billion in conduit transactions. The past year was highlighted by a $2.05 billion CMBS loan in February 2026 for Blackstone that Bank of America led to refinance three multitenant data centers in Chicago, Manassas, Va., and Suwanee, Ga.

Cohen’s team played a critical role in jump-starting the CMBS market in late 2024 when it co-originated Tishman Speyer’s $3.5 billion CMBS refinance of its Rockefeller Center office complex in October 2024. It then began last year by co-originating a $2.85 billion CMBS for The Spiral office tower in Hudson Yards in January 2025, followed a month later by a $1.5 billion refi on 200 Park Avenue. Cohen said the deals helped steer momentum to the entire CMBS market.

“I think it’s clear now that the market is wide open for A-plus trophy office,” Cohen said. “It doesn’t have to be Midtown Manhattan as you pick your spot around the country. If it’s of that caliber with that type of sponsorship, there’s a great bid for it.”

Bank of America was also lively on the balance sheet lending front with the

commercial real estate banking team originating $24 billion in 2025. The year ended in grand style when the bank co-led a $1.6 billion construction loan for a 72-story office project at 70 Hudson Yards as part of a $2.45 billion capitalization.

“Our lending activity increased in 2025, and we were proud to support our commercial real estate clients by providing capital, advice and other banking solutions that helped grow and enhance their businesses,”

Brad Dubeck said.

The Bank of America community development banking team was also busy in 2025 with $7.4 billion in debt and equity financing executed across 87 development projects in 68 cities to produce more than 11,000 affordable housing units.

The CDB team led by Maria Barry has found success bringing affordable housing projects to the finish line amid challenging economic environments in recent years with multi-layered capital stacks utilizing debt mixed with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, historic tax credits, new market tax credits and equity.

“We have a good, solid foundation of where the market is, where the opportunities are, and our clients are really focused on assembling the capital stack, which does take some time,” Barry said. “There can be 10 to 20 sources in a deal, and every little piece counts because it makes it balance at the end.” —A.C.

11

Dino Paparelli

Global head of commercial real estate at Deutsche Bank

Last year’s rank: 13

In a year when CMBS returned to the forefront of capital markets, Dino Paparelli’s team at Deutsche Bank made sure they were leaders of the pack.

The German bank participated in 49 CMBS transactions in 2025 (21 conduit, 28 SASB) for a total deal volume of $9.6 billion. Moreover, Deutsche Bank originated an additional 47 balance sheet and repurchase transaction for a gross volume of more than $5.5 billion on that end.

“It’s the business we’ve been doing for 30 years, so we know how to play this game,” said Paparelli, who emphasized the diverse range of services his bank can provide. “We have comfort in both capital markets and balance sheet origination, and the ability to adapt to what clients require amid changing market conditions.”

Among the highlight CMBS transactions in 2025 was Deutsche Bank pricing a $1.32 billion multi-borrower, pooled conduit transaction composed entirely of fiveyear, fixed-rate loans, the  largest conduit deal since February 2022.

“In a highly competitive market, you need a good origination setup, CMBS capital market skills,and you need to have a distribution network and a good secondary trading floor to give liquidity to the business,” explained Paparelli. “We have all of this — we compete.”

Another flagship deal Paparelli and his team secured was a $1.1 billion, fiveyear, floating-rate SASB financing for Deutsche Bank Center at 1 Columbus Circle, a two-office tower condominium in Manhattan with 1.1 million square feet of rentable Class A office space, representing a joint venture sponsored by Related Companies, GIC and ADIA.

For a team that can move seamlessly from conduit to SASB, and from hospitality and industrial balance sheet loans right into back leverage, triple-net leases and land banking, Paparelli credits the tenure of his chief lieutenants for these multifaceted origination abilities.

“We have at least five individuals that have been with the firm for more than 25 years, so there’s obviously deep historical knowledge,” he said. “They have a lot of pride in the work that they do. They feel that this business is part of the DNA of the bank.” —B.P.

Their achievement re ects the successful launch and growth of Nomura’s Commercial Real Estate platform. We thank our valued clients and partners for their continued collaboration, which remains the foundation of our success.

Larry Kravetz

Head of US CRE & CMBS

Phone: (212) 667-9024

larry.kravetz@nomura.com

Frank Gilhool

Head of US CRE Warehouse Financing

Phone: (212) 667-9122

frank.gilhool@nomura.com

Andy DiPietro

Head of Large Loan Originations

Phone: (212) 436-8694

andrew.dipietro@nomura.com

Bobby Wiginton

Head of Conduit Originations

Phone: (415) 445-3896

robert.wiginton@nomura.com

Jeff DiModica, Lorcain Egan and Dennis Schuh

President; global head of real estate private credit; head of U.S. real estate private credit at Starwood Property Trust

Last year’s rank: 11

Starwood Property Trust was a perfect “10” last year, completing $10 billion of transactions across 60 loans. Roughly half of those loans were backed by industrial properties and 44 percent by multifamily or residential assets.

As if that weren’t reason enough to “Give ’em a 10,” the REIT’s notable transactions included a $500 million data center construction loan in Utah that’s pre-leased to a hyperscale tenant, and a $500 million refinance of a 42-asset industrial portfolio in New York.

Tackling large, complex transactions is one of Starwood’s calling cards, and its average loan balance exceeded $150 million this past year across ground-up developments, heavy transitional deals, lease-up scenarios and straightforward cash-flowing bridge loans.

During a year where some lenders were sidelined at times, Starwood stayed the course. “We’ve invested every quarter since COVID,” Jeff DiModica said. “We have this consistent capital, and that’s really helped us stay in front of borrowers, because they look at us as being a consistent source of capital for them. We’re able to write loans in every market.”

“We’ve originated through various storms, always having access to capital,” Dennis Schuh said. “We always lean into larger deals, and we differentiate ourselves with that size. We did around 10 deals that were $300, $400, $500 million in size,

which crowds out a lot of the competition.”

At the corporate level, Starwood raised $4.4 billion of debt and equity last year, “which was a record for us,” DiModica said. “That really set us up well with tremendous liquidity coming into 2026 to be on our front foot and be opportunistic.”

The firm also splashed some cash, paying $2.2 billion for Fundamental Income Properties, a net-lease business. “It gives us another sector on top of all the others we’re in, which we can use to hone our opinions even more broadly,” DiModica said.

The fact that over two-thirds of Starwood’s borrowers are repeat borrowers is the ultimate validation of its business, Lorcain Egan said.

“It stands to reason. We’ve been creative, we’re reliable, we’re fast, and we do that no matter what’s happening in the market,” Egan explained. “That’s relevant for Starwood Property Trust, but also for our debt funds. We’ve built up a really strong second vertical within our credit business, we’ve got the best business in Starwood Property Trust in terms of the listed space, and then our institutional client base is supporting us to build out a really strong private debt fund business.”

“We’re really seeing the power of the franchise today,” DiModica said. “We have a balance sheet that’s really hard to compete with, but I think it’s our consistency that really paid off in the last year or two.” —C.C.

Matt Salem, Joel Traut, Patrick Mattson, Rene Theriault and Lindsey Wright

Partner and head at KKR Real Estate Credit; partner and global head of direct lending at KKR Real Estate Credit; partner and global head of direct lending at KKR Real Estate Credit; managing director and head of securities investing at KKR Real Estate Credit; managing director and head of investment services at KKR Real Estate Credit and CEO and president at K-Star Asset Management

Last year’s rank: 12

“Respect every opponent, but fear none,” basketball legend John Wooden once said.

In 2025’s competitive lending landscape, KKR forged ahead, originating 42 loans totaling $6.4 billion in loan commitments. Further, KKR maintained its crown as one of the largest investors in the junior tranches of CMBS across both conduit B-pieces and SASB, investing more than $3.5 billion in real estate securities as of year end 2025.

Roughly 71 percent of loans originated were to repeat borrowers, the platform’s track record and established reputation just two arrows in its quiver.

Notable deals included a $564 million whole loan for the refinance of a 994,000-square-foot high-rise office building in Bellevue, Wash.; and a $408 million whole loan for the acquisition of a 55-property infill industrial portfolio located across six business parks in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area. In the aftermath of the Liberation Day tariffs announcement in April 2025, when both balance sheet and securitized lenders were sidelined, KKR leaned into the volatility to make a $400 million senior loan for a Raleigh light industrial portfolio.

As for the aforementioned competition, KKR takes it all in its stride.

“If I think about the world two years ago or so, there was less competition and less to do. The pipelines were smaller, and we weren’t in that wave of maturities,” Matt Salem said.

“Over the course of the last six months to nine months, there’s been more competition, but there’s a lot more to look at [deal-wise], and I would rather be in this environment than the lower volume, less competition one and put our franchise up against the heavier competitive dynamic, because I think we’ve got great relationships and a great franchise to navigate it.”

With regard to the geopolitical shock and market volatility in the last month or two, Salem said he wouldn’t necessarily categorize the lending environment as any less competitive today, but rather “more conservative,” he said. ”People have their antenna up a little more.”

In addition to deal activity, KKR has had much to celebrate this year. In February 2025, it closed its KKR Opportunistic Real Estate Credit Fund II, dedicated to opportunistic investments in loans and securities, with $850 million in commitments, currently being deployed.

Salem views 2026 as a continuation of 2025, in that activity is heavily driven by the maturity wall. While there’s exogenous volatility, “right now, knock on wood, it feels like the markets are still healthy and functioning,” Salem said. “I’m expecting there to be a lot of volume, and a great investing year for everyone. Our lending business is really active, our CMBS business is super active and there’s just a lot of demand for loans right now.I expect that to continue, and we’re excited about what we’re seeing so far.” —C.C.

Rob Turner, Matt DeAtley, Sam Supple and Matthew Haden Managing

directors at Eastdil Secured

Last year’s rank: 16

The debt team at Eastdil Secured broke firm records for originations in 2025, setting the stage for even bigger numbers if all goes well in 2026.

Led by Rob Turner, Matt DeAtley, Sam Supple and Matthew Haden, Eastdil Secured closed 322 debt placement transactions (including loan sales and structured finance) for $101 billion in deal volume, of which more than $80 billion was in the U.S. CRE.

It’s only April, but the office has a current pipeline of $58 billion in deal volume teed up for 2026.

“At the end of the day, we’re still the leaders of large loans — our average deal size was north of $300 million,” said Haden.

Turner noted that the firm jumped headfirst into the office space in 2025, particularly in Manhattan, arranging a $510 million loan on 5 Bryant Park and a $1.3 billion loan on 660 Fifth Avenue. The firm completed $20 billion of office financings across all lender types.

“Office was a big component of our business relative to 2024,” said Turner.

But it was in the digital space where Eastdil’s data center platform established itself as the new industry standard for large loan brokerage, with its deal volume in that sector up five times year-over-year from 2024.

“We’ve staffed that space on a very collaborative teambased approach, and that’s how we’re winning deals in this environment,” said Supple, who noted that the firm’s current pipeline in data centers is close to $70 billion, of which $30 billion are financings. “It’s been a tremendous growth engine and priority for the firm.”

DeAtley said the secret to the team’s success lies in the

collaborative nature of the firm, where everyone works together and takes home earnings from the same pool of money, eschewing commission entirely. He said this creates a system that ensures constant communication and an ethos built on finding the right broker for each deal

Tom Traynor and Tom Rugg

Vice chairs and co-heads of U.S. large loans in debt and structured finance at CBRE

Last year’s rank: 14

2025 proved that even in a volatile market, business has never been better for the Global Institutional Debt Advisory group at CBRE.

Led by Tom Traynor and Tom Rugg, this 10-person unit of large loan specialists arranged $13.7 billion across 54 transactions — essentially one deal per week —  carrying an average loan size of $254 million, giving the team its highest performance volume since CBRE formed the debt and structured finance unit nine years ago.

“Because we don’t have this massive and expansive group, we have to pick and choose everything we work on, and we have to be careful of our time,” explained Traynor. “We can’t just take any deal that comes our way. But by focusing on a few groups and large deals — frankly the biggest institutional players in the market — we get to work on different transactions, in different geographies, across different asset classes.”

Rugg believes the secret to the team’s success at CBRE is due to two decades he and Traynor spent at premier investment banks, notably Deutsche Bank, managing large loans for institutional partners.

“Having that relationship with clients and being able to translate that into a firm like CBRE, which has its tentacles literally everywhere, positions us so uniquely for our clients,” said Rugg.

Even amid high interest rates, persistent inflation, Liberation Day tariffs and war in the Middle East, the CBRE team arranged several major transactions over the last 12 months.

These include a $1.3 million SASB loan to refinance the 11 Madison office asset in Manhattan; a $1.2 billion construction loan for a new data center in Northern Virginia; and $850 million to refinance a portfolio of 17 industrial facilities spanning 9 million square feet.

“Our focus is institutional debt and institutional clients, and that means our clients take us wherever their capital is taking them,” said Rugg.

Traynor, ever the gentleman, credited the greater CBRE platform.

“We have fantastic internal partners on the investment sales side, the leasing side, and there are 130,000 employees here around the globe,” he said. “There are just so many resources and so much data and information that we have.” —B.P.

amid every part of the capital stack.

“It’s us truly being an adviser to our clients to make sure, across the board, it’s the best investors in the deal and the right pricing and the best execution,” he said.

—B.P.

Christopher Peck, Michael Gigliotti and Kevin Davis

Senior managing directors and co-heads at JLL New York; CEO at JLL Hotels and Hospitality for the Americas

Last year’s rank: 17

For Christopher Peck, Michael Gigliotti and Kevin Davis, the advisory business they’ve built over the course of 17 years at JLL New York embodies an ancient maxim attributed to Aristotle: Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

“Progress compounds like money compounds: You make a little bit every day,” said Peck. “We’re finally at that point, where we’re the No. 1 office of all JLL, we’re the No. 1 [brokerage] business in the city, and we have this continuity — we all were kids when we started working together 17 years ago.”

Aside from continuity, Gigliotti points to the ethos of hard work, openness to opportunity, and meritocracy that has allowed nearly 60 producers across JLL’s debt, equity and investment sales channels to thrive in 2025.

“We invested a lot in our young people, gave them a platform to succeed, and so many of them started really hitting the pitching last year,” said Gigliotti. “We have 57 producers across sales and debt, and 30 of them had their best year ever. It wasn’t like the three of us just knocked it out of the park.”

But there’s no doubt the veteran threeheaded monster at JLL set the tone for a remarkable year of business. In the last 12 months, JLL’s flagship team of advisers arranged $28 billion in CRE debt across 378 deals and an additional $2.5 billion in equity in 49 transactions, for a total deal volume of $30.5 billion and an average transaction size of $68.4 million.

Top transactions include structuring $535 million in construction financing for Alloy Development and the Vistria Group’s 583-unit residential tower at One Third Avenue; obtaining $515 million in acquisition financing for a 25-property, 8.7 million-square-foot national logistics portfolio managed by Artemis Real Estate Partners; and securing $465 million in C-PACE financing from Nuveen Green Capital for Post Brothers’ 532unit office-to-residential conversion in Washington, D.C., which was briefly the largest C-PACE loan ever originated.

“We always act in the best interest of our clients, not ourselves,” said Davis. “It’s not a star broker philosophy here. We win and lose as a team, and that’s what differentiates JLL.” —B.P.

Robert Verrone, Christopher Herron and John Wood

Principal; managing director; and chief operating officer at Iron Hound Management

Last year’s rank: 19

If ever there was a time to need an experienced workout advisory firm you can rely on, this is it. Between looming maturities and displacement in the capital markets, it gives new meaning to things that go bump in the night. And with $10 billion of restructurings completed in 2025, the proof is in the pudding that when the call has to be made, Iron Hound Management is “Who you gonna call!”

The firm’s $10 billion total almost doubles its 2024 total of $5.3 billion and spanned asset classes. When it came to office, those restructurings helped some borrowers buy more time when leasing issues popped up, while others were allowed new investment into properties as values eroded. Notable restructurings in 2025 included a four-year extension for Tamares Group’s $505 million CMBS loan on 1500 Broadway; an extension of the $660 million loan tied to a federal office portfolio owned by NGP Group that spans 18 states; a four-year extension of the $1.4 million loan on Triple Five Group’s Mall of America in New Jersey; a restructuring of the $714 million in  debt on Chetrit Group’s Yorkshire Towers and Lexington Towers on the Upper East Side; and an extension on the $425 million CMBS loan on Rudin’s 32 Avenue of the Americas, to name but a few.

Chris Herron puts the big uptick in volume down to timing, with more maturities than you can shake a stick at, but also prestige. “Our reputation feeds the pipeline pretty strongly, and business begets business,” he said. “It’s also reps — the more we close, the better we get at it.”

The team, which includes Robert Verrone and John Wood, has been hard at it for 17 years, and a big part of its success when working on restructurings is working with clients who understand their nuances and are well capitalized.

“Every single deal requires a capital contribution of some sort, and so we do a lot of upfront work to try to pencil out all the scenarios that we believe could be the possible outcome, and familiarize everybody with how much money will need to be put in,” Herron said.

In addition to $10 billion of restructurings, the Iron Hound team also arranged $1.2 billion in financings in 2025, and this year is shaping up pretty darn nicely, too. “There’s been a steady sign-up rate, and some of the things we were working on last year are still in the pipeline now and closing this year,” Herron said. “That said, we always have capacity, because we make sure that, if something comes along — especially for clients we’ve done multiple deals with — we never say, ‘No, we can’t work on it.’ There are others in our space who are smart and capable, but nobody who has been doing it as long as we have with the relationships we have, or the reps.” —C.C.

Commercial Observer Names Oaktree’s Real Estate Debt Group to the Power 50 in Commerical Real Estate

Justin Guichard Portfolio Manager Co-Head of Real Estate

Aaron Greenberg Assistant Portfolio Manager Real Estate Debt

Ainslee Burns-Roberts Senior Vice President Real Estate Debt

Amiyr Jackson Senior Vice President Real Estate Debt

Oaktree’s Real Estate Debt strategy invests in performing private credit and traded debt securities across real estate sectors. As of December 31, 2025, Oaktree’s Real Estate Debt Strategy has $10 billion in assets under management.

Oaktree is a leader among global investment managers specializing in alternative investments, with $223 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2025.

$135,000,000

Mortgage | Hospitality Refinance | Arizona

$125,000,000

Justin Guichard Portfolio Manager, Co-Head of Real Estate (213) 830-6363

Charles Baxter (213) 947-7072

Aaron Greenberg

JGuichard@oaktreecapital.com

CBaxter@oaktreecapital.com

Ainslee Burns Roberts (212) 284-1981

ABurnsroberts@oaktreecapital.com

Assistant Portfolio Manager, Real Estate Debt (213) 356-3018 AGreenberg@oaktreecapital.com

Derek Rich +44 20 7201 4736 DRich@oaktreecapital.com

Amiyr Jackson (213) 356-3982 AJackson@oaktreecapital.com

Kevin Sciarillo (213) 356-3072 KSciarillo@oaktreecapital.com

Bryan Sather (213) 356-3522

BSather@oaktreecapital.com

Saad Sohail +44 20 7201 4710

SSohail@oaktreecapital.com

Rob Rubano, Gideon Gil and John Alascio

18

Aaron Appel, Jonathan Schwartz, Keith Kurland, Adam Schwartz and Dustin Stolly Senior managing directors for capital markets; senior director for capital markets and co-head of institutional advisory; senior managing director at Walker & Dunlop

Last year’s rank: 21

“We had a very productive year,” Jonathan Schwartz said.

Yep, we’d say that’s a pretty accurate assessment. The Walker & Dunlop institutional advisory team advised on or closed $23.8 billion of debt and equity transactions across 158 deals nationwide in the past 12 months.

Roll call! The team arranged 111 Wall Street’s $779 million construction loan for its officeto-resi conversion, the largest single-building conversion loan in New York City history; a $285 million bridge loan to refinance Greenpoint Central, a newly built multifamily property in Brooklyn; a $160 million construction loan for the first phase of the Storyliving by Disney master-planned community in Rancho Mirage, Calif.; a $465  million acquisition and pre-development loan for Waterfront Brickell, the largest single land acquisition loan ever closed in Miami for the final developable waterfront parcel of its scale in the coveted neighborhood; and the $372 million development financing for the Nashville Edition hotel and residences, a 28-story development featuring 261 hotel rooms and 84 branded residences in Nashville’s Gulch neighborhood. Yee-haw!

There’s no mistaking that the market has been more conducive to deal activity in general of late (or at least until mid-March) but that’s only one part of it, Schwartz said.

“That’s always helpful, but we have a phenomenal team that we put together,” he said. “We’ve got 25 people with excellent experience and expertise that our clients find incredibly valuable. We’ve surrounded ourselves with experts in the field, and clients look to us not just to get them the cheapest rate or the best structure, but what their strategy should be across their entire portfolio. We have a name that resonates really positively, and I think the stats show that.”

The team featured here — Schwartz, Aaron Appel, Keith Kurland, Adam Schwartz and Dustin Stolly — together with Sean Reimer, form a dynamic sextet that guides top sponsors and clients from origination through closing.

“There’s been so much capital sitting on the sidelines that’s now being put to work again,” Jonathan Schwartz said. “The days of continuing to kick the can down the road are over, whether it’s a sale or a non-sale of an asset or a lender not extending a loan. The liquidity of the credit markets has increased since January of this year. It’s a great time to be in the market to borrow capital as, in terms of competition, it’s as liquid as I’ve ever seen in my career.” —C.C.

Executive vice chairman and head of U.S. debt and structured finance; executive vice chairman of debt and structured finance; vice chairman of equity, debt and structured finance at Cushman & Wakefield

Last year’s rank: 22

With a total transaction volume of $21.3 billion for the period from March 1, 2025, to March 1, 2026, Cushman & Wakefield soared above its previous year total of $12.8 billion.

While this may seem to indicate an influx of new business, Rob Rubano said that C&W profited from a steady flow of long-term clients that already understand the advantages of working with the firm — which includes executive colleagues Gideon Gil and John Alascio.

“I wouldn’t say we saw a significant uptick in transaction volume,” said Rubano. “When I look at 2025 across our platform, it was more heavily weighted towards refinance volume, and that includes everything from large, cross-collateralized SASB pools to smaller individual assets across asset classes.”

Rubano’s team at C&W saw strong volume across asset classes, including $7.8 billion in multifamily, $6.2 billion in industrial and $3.3 billion in office.

Some of the team’s larger loans included $1.625 billion for one pool of industrial properties and $950 million for a separate, similar pool, as well as $900 million to finance the office building at 28 Liberty Street and $800 million to refinance 550 Madison Avenue.

Rubano said the company’s current success revolves around serving its largest clients in an overall advisory capacity.

“Our average loan size last year was somewhere in the $60 million to $70 million range, and looking at it across our peer group, that’s where we want to be,” said Rubano. “We think of ourselves as advisers, not brokers. As a true adviser, you want to focus a portion of that advisory service on the larger clients that are always transacting, regardless of what the macro environment is. So I’m proud of how our business has continually moved in that direction. That’s been a consistent theme for the seven years I’ve been here, and it shows up in the numbers.” —L.G.

Warren de Haan, Kyle Jeffers and Tony Fineman

Managing partner and CEO; chief investment officer; senior managing director and head of originations

at Acore

Capital

Last year’s rank: 18

2025 was one heck of a year for Acore Capital.

In November, insurance giant Tokio Marine acquired a majority stake in the firm, granting Acore discretion over its $10 billion commercial real estate debt portfolio. The transaction represented something of a full-circle moment for the firm as Delphi Financial Group, a subsidiary of Tokio Marine, was an investor in Acore’s launch in 2015. Since then, Acore has grown from $1.6 billion in capital commitments to $18.3 billion in assets under management.

“I think it’s a complete differentiator from anyone else in the market,” CEO Warren de Haan said. “Berskshire Hathaway recently took a $1.8 billion position in Tokio Marine, which further strengthens that cornerstone of what we set out to do. The number of opportunities that we at Acore have had to partner with, sell an interest in, or otherwise, in the company to various other investment companies has been significant. But we’re now in an extraordinarily unique and great place, with the largest insurance company in Japan as an extremely stable partner to be in business with.”

Additionally, “there’s more competitors in the market, but few have the discretion over capital we have,” de Haan

said. “We have the ability to make decisions on literally tens of billions of capital.”

Acore originated or made material modifications to 138 loans totaling $10.8 billion in the year ending March 31, 2026, and signed up 16 deals totaling $1.5 billion in the first quarter alone. Roughly 40 percent of closed loans were with repeat borrowers.

Many of Acore’s transactions were impressive but off record. Public biggies included a $160 million refinance for MDH Partners on a 10-property industrial portfolio.

“Coming off of `23 and `24, `25 was nothing short of phenomenal for us,” Tony Fineman said. “Our origination volume tripled from the prior year, and we did a bunch of deals with a bunch of important sponsors.”

Acore also launched its debut CRE CLO, ACORE 2026-FL1, a $1.1 billion managed CRE CLO. The initial collateral pool consists of 22 loans secured primarily by multifamily and industrial properties.

“It was a natural evolution of the company,” Kyle Jeffers said. “We looked at the capital markets and how they were treating CLOs, and the markets were very attractive. The

Adi Chugh

Founder and CEO at Tyko Capital

Last year’s rank: 20

Adi Chugh powered onto the Power Finance list for the first time last year, and for good reason. A mere 18 months into launching Tyko Capital — along with partner Elliott Investment Management — Chugh at the time was already winning some of the industry’s hottest deals and leaving competitors in the dust to the tune of $5 billion.

The momentum has continued, and Tyko Capital has become an even more impressive force, closing $5.8 billion in transactions this past year.

“We continue to focus on our core tenets of top sponsors, top assets and top markets,” Chugh said. “While the market was competitive, we were still able to continue to gain market share because we stuck to the basics of our business.”

Chugh is behind some of the biggest deals in Miami and New York today, and when we say big, we mean big. In Miami, Tyko refinanced the city’s most famous office address, 830 Brickell, with a $565 million loan on behalf of Cain and OKO last summer.

But it didn’t stop there. While the weather turned cooler, Tyko turned up the heat with a $527 million loan for Related Group’s St. Regis-branded condo tower; $424 million for Related’s oceanfront condo project in Bal Harbour; a $285 million construction loan for Terra’s Mr. C Hotel & Residences In West Palm Beach; and a $410 million loan for Terra and AB Management’s boutique luxury condo development in Coconut Grove.

As for New York, let’s start with the cherry- on-top deal. In December, Tyko was the lender behind the $1.13 billion financing

levels were really good, the pricing was good, and so we thought the time was right to diversify our business.”

Acore did an old-school road show for the CRE CLO debut. “We put on our suits and ties, we met with the bond investors, and what was fascinating about that is we’d go into the meeting and people would say, ‘Oh yeah, Acore, we know you guys.’ Then we’d sit down at the table and start speaking, and they’d go, ‘Actually, we don’t know anything about you — tell us your story.’ ”

The fruits of those meetings resulted in “excellent treatment in the way the bonds priced,” Jeffers said. “Overall, it was a hugely successful deal, and we will continue to be issuers in the CLO market throughout the years.”

“We spent years producing billions and billions of dollars of bonds in our past,” Chief Operating Officer Boyd Fellows said. “This CRE CLO is a $1 billion transaction, but it felt like a baby step to the beginning of tens of billions of similar transactions over the next decade. Kyle ran around and got warm, giant embraces from all the biggest household names that exist. We’re so happy to be here, and this whole experience felt great.” —C.C.

for Extell Development’s mixed-use building at 655 Madison, marking New York City’s biggest construction loan of the year. Fashion and fragrance giant Chanel will house its flagship location at the building’s base, and all around it was a deal that made us say, “Ooh la la!”

Farther downtown, Tyko, along with J,P. Morgan and Apollo Global Management, financed 111 Wall Street’s conversion to residential use with a $867 million loan. Across the river, it provided $358 million of construction financing for two mixed-use assets owned by Namdar Group in Jersey City’s Journal Square neighborhood, and — a few months later — a $220 million refinance for the developer’s 27-story Class A multifamily property at 626 Newmark Avenue, also in Journal Square.

Tyko’s lending volume featured a number of repeat borrowers, which Chugh attributed to the firm’s flexibility to customize loan structure based on market conditions.

“They are coming to us because they know that every single transaction, no matter what it is, will have some speed bumps along the way. And, in those testy times, they know who will be there to have that difficult conversation with them, and who will be there to collaborate during that difficult time,” Chugh said.

“Whenever there is some hiccup in the process, we can actively roll our sleeves up with the borrower to find an elegant solution that works for both. At the end of the day, even though we are a lender, we are their partner through and through until we get paid back.” — C.C. and A.C.

Melissa Farrell, Stephanie Wiggins and Jaime Zadra

Managing director and head of U.S. debt originations; head of agency and FHA production; and managing director and head of West and Southwest debt originations at PGIM Real Estate

Last year’s rank: 23

PGIM Real Estate’s diversified lending platform stood out in a year of increased competition in the private credit space.

PGIM executed $15 billion of originations in 2025 as more private lenders looked to supply commercial real estate debt and banks began to step back into the lending game. It was well positioned to shine in the more competitive landscape with a versatile platform that deploys on a national scale.

“The breadth of our platform of all the different capital sources running all the way from our stable core to our transitional products like coreplus to our structure and to our agency platform I think really helps us, especially in markets that can be a bit volatile,” Melissa Farrell said.

PGIM’s core loan portfolio as Dec. 31, 2025, was 37 percent multifamily, 37 percent industrial and 10 percent retail. Its core-plus portfolio was 63 percent multifamily and 28 percent industrial. One of PGIM’s signature loans involved a $132 million floating-rate refinance for the Abbey Group’s 320-unit Viridian project in Boston that opened in 2015.

“Since we’re playing in both core and coreplus, we’ve got the appetite up and down the leverage spectrum,” Jaime Zadra said. “It’s a difference maker for our borrowers, but also for our investors.”

The PGIM agency lending business also saw growth in 2025 with $6.5 billion in originations compared to $4.2 billion the previous year.

The big agency lending year for PGIM included supplying a $619 million debt package in August to HHHunt Corporation to refinance 15 rental apartment properties in the Southeast totaling 427 units. The financing was broken up into a $412.8 million Freddie Mac-backed deal consisting of five loans, followed by a $206.16 million Fannie Mae-backed transaction — also with five loans.

“What makes us stand out is having a strong credit culture that is ultimately solutions oriented,” Stephanie Wiggins said. “If we see an opening where we can mitigate the challenges and structure a deal that’s attractive to the agencies and to the borrower, we take that and run with it and we execute on it.” —A.C.

Mike Edelman, Tim Gallagher and Matt Petrula

President and CEO; head of commercial real estate; regional sales director for CRE at M&T Realty Capital Corporation

Last year’s rank: 29

After a 2024 that saw M&T Bank originate $11 billion in loans, with $5.4 billion being placed through the firm’s agency and mortgage arm, M&T Realty Capital Corporation, the company saw marked growth in 2025, with those numbers jumping to $15 billion and $6.2 billion — the latter a record for M&T Realty Capital.

M&T’s origination activity includes a mix of construction, permanent, bridge and corporate facilities throughout a project’s life cycle both on and off balance sheet, a variety the firm considers a major differentiator for its clients.

“We have a lot of borrowers who are ground-up developers, or they’re looking to buy an asset and reposition it,” said Matt Petrula. “Our platform provides a product for every phase of the life cycle of that asset.”

Mike Edelman — who, like Petrula, reports to Tim Gallagher — said that the firm developed a bridge-to-permanent-loan product for transitional assets that are going through lease-up, repositioning or major capex.

“It gives owners property-level financing for that transition period so they can bridge

the gap between modification or renovation of the property into the permanent state,” said Edelman.

Significant transactions this past year for M&T Realty Capital included providing a $142 million bridge-to-agency loan to a joint venture involving Fetner, MCB Real Estate and Farallon Capital Management for the acquisition and lease-up of a 463-unit multifamily tower in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, as well as a $57 million bridge-to-agency loan to Victrix for its lease-up of LiveWell, an office-to-apartment conversion in Downtown Pittsburgh.

In today’s economy, lenders like M&T must maintain an adaptability around the various asset types in order to enjoy success, Petrula said.

“You need the willingness and ability to look around the corner as far as what’s happening in the market,” he said. “For something that might have been a very successful office loan 10 years ago, the highest and best use on that property may very well be residential today. The ability to do that is really important in order to stay relevant for our customers.” —L.G.

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High Marks

Who made the biggest jumps within Power Finance in 2026?

This year’s Power Finance 50 list was relatively stable, but there were some notable risers among some private lenders, banks and brokerages.

Barings recorded the biggest ascent, jumping 10 spots from No. 43 to No. 33. The non-bank lender closed $5.1 billion of originations across its real estate debt platform in 2025, a 58.9 percent increase from 2024. The firm’s U.S debt portfolio consisted of 53 percent in the residential space, 23 percent in hotel and industrial assets, and with 8 percent in the office sector.

Five percent of Barings’ debt portfolio was invested in affordable housing in 2025, which was amplified when it provided a $133.4 million construction loan for the development of 22 Fulton Street, a mixed-income multifamily property in Newark, N.J., of which 80 units will be affordable.

M&T Realty Capital Corporation also made moves in Power Finance 2026, moving up six spots from No. 29 to No. 23.

M&T Bank upped its debt volume by 36.3 percent to $15 billion in 2025 and saw originations placed through the firm’s agency and mortgage arm, M&T Realty Capital, jump by 14.8 percent to a company record of $6.2 billion. Bank of America rose five spots to No. 10 from No. 15

after a year in which the company displayed versatility across its commercial mortgage-backed securities, balance-sheet lending and affordable housing finance businesses.

The bank’s CMBS team, led by Ken Cohen, originated $10.6 billion, including $8.4 billion in singleasset, single-borrower deals and $2.2 billion in conduit transactions.

M&T’s commercial real estate banking team had a busy 2025 as well with $24 million of originations. The active year was capped by a $1.6 billion construction loan for a 72-story office project at 70 Hudson Yards as part of a $2.45 billion capitalization.

The Bank of America community development banking team executed $7.4 billion in debt and equity financing across 87 development projects in 68 cities to produce more than 11,000 affordable housing units.

Walker & Dunlop experienced the biggest ranking gain among brokerages, jumping to the No. 18 spot from No. 21 a year ago. The W&D institutional advisory team advised on or closed $23.8 billion of debt and equity transactions across 158 deals nationwide in the past 12 months.

Among the team’s signature deals was a $779 million

construction financing arranged for 111 Wall Street in what marked the largest singlebuilding conversion loan in New York City history.

Some of the biggest jumps are firms appearing on this list for the first time. Nomura’s commercial lending and CMBS platform, launched just seven months ago, makes its debut at a very respectable No. 26. Led by industry veterans Larry Kravetz and Frank Gilhool, Nomura has charged ahead into a variety of financing deals, and by March 2026 the young firm had crossed the $1 billion mark in client warehouse facilities.

Ares Real Estate, a more established firm, wasn’t far behind, debuting at No. 29, thanks largely to $5.7 billion in loan commitments in 2025. Nipping at Ares’ heel at No. 30 is Benefit Street Partners, which originated $9 billion in real estate investments last year.

On the advisory side, Morris Betesh and his Arrow Real Estate Advisors, launched in 2024, debuted at No. 40. Non-bank lender S3 Capital debuted at No. 46. Marcus & Millichap’s Institutional Property Advisors, turbocharged by the 2023 addition of Max Herzog and Marko Kazanjian, debuted at No. 47.

Welcome to the list, newbies, and bravo on the jumps, our established honorees. — A.C.

Congratulations to this year’s Commercial Observer’s 2026 Power Finance List, and our colleagues Tim Johnson and Michael Wiebolt.

Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies (“BREDS”) is the largest alternative asset manager of real estate credit, serving institutional, insurance, and individual investors. BREDS originates loans and makes debt investments across global private and public real estate credit markets and across the capital structure and risk spectrum.

Michael Lavipour and Jeffrey Fastov

Senior managing director and head of lending; senior managing director at Affinius Capital

Last year’s rank: 25

When Mike Lavipour is asked about the secret to Affinius’ success, he points to the diversity of lending products his private credit firm offers.

In 2025, Affinius specialized in construction lending at varying degrees, with levered or unlevered transactions, floating-rate construction loans, bridge loans — notably bridge-to-agency financings through its partnership with Capital One — as well some preferred equity in large-scale deals.

“It was really a mixed bag, but having that diversity of products was really helpful in being able to face the borrower market from the standpoint of asking, ‘What are their needs in the various life cycle stage of assets?’ ’’ said Lavipour, who works closely with Jeffrey Fastov in directing the flow of the firm’s credit.

In 2025, Affinius’ 40-person team originated 59 transactions totaling $6.9 billion in gross volume, with $2 billion coming out of bridge loans, roughly $4.5 billion from construction financings, $1 billion in core loans and junior bonds, and $800 million in preferred equity.

Lavipour noted that unlike some years — such as 2021, which was dominated by bridge loans, or 2022, which was all about new development — 2025 couldn’t be pigeonholed into one type of deal.

“The source of the deals were, broadly speaking, recapitalizations of 2021 and 2022 vintage, either developments or acquisitions from then,” he said. “It was that plus new development activity on sites that had been around for a handful of years, irrespective of loan product or duration.”

Flagship transactions included a $340 million whole loan to Sky Equity Group and the Patel family for the refinancing and completion of 313 Bond Street, a 603unit multifamily complex in Brooklyn; and a $250 million whole loan to Focus Development and Group Fox to finance the development of Brickell Starlite, a 39-story, 517-unit multifamily tower in Miami.

“Our goal is for our borrowers to make a lot of money, and we try to make it as easy as possible to do so,” said Lavipour. —B.P

Paul Vanderslice Head of CMBS finance at BMO Capital Markets

Last year’s rank: 24

Under Paul Vanderslice’s leadership, BMO Capital Markets is taking a bigger “slice” of the CMBS pie with each year that passes.

In the year ending March 1, BMO closed $5.4 billion in transactions — comprising $3.6 billion in conduit loans and $1.7 billion in SASB CMBS — compared with $4.4 billion the previous year. B-M-Whoa!

“The market got bigger so the pie is getting bigger, at least for the past couple of years,” Vanderslice said. “We’re trying to grow as fast as, or faster than, the market. I think you do have to be in the market at all times and as often as you can be to stay relevant.”

Breaking that down further, BMO was lead or co-lead on 24 conduit transactions and co-lead on eight SASB deals for major sponsors. Several of the platform’s deals included a B note or mezz component.

Headline-grabbing deals include the $450 million loan for Vornado’s Penn 11 office property in Midtown Manhattan. The 2025-P11 SASB CMBS transaction was co-originated by Citigroup, BMO Capital Markets and Société Générale.

Part of BMO’s strength is its nimbleness, which proves especially handy in constantly changing market conditions, like we’ve all experienced these past couple (well, let’s face it, six) years.

“This year was very similar to last year in that

in 2025 the market started out very strong from January to probably April, then Liberation Day hit. In 2026, things started out very strong in January and February, and then Iran hit,” Vanderslice said. “The difference this year is that investors never stopped investing, and what we generally try to do is stay nimble. We adapt pretty quickly to the market and never really try to market-time. We go to market when we’re ready, and we’re a small enough team that we all communicate pretty well, which is much harder to do if you have a much bigger group.”

The competition continues to circle coveted deals, but BMO continues to secure the hottest of all. Case in point, the BX Commercial Mortgage Trust 2025-VOLT data center deal, an interest-only, two-year, floating-rate first mortgage with a principal balance of $3.46 billion. BMO co-originated the loan alongside 10 other banks.

Another competitive advantage for BMO is the level of transparency its team provides to clients throughout transactions.

“It’s having that constant communication, whether you’re delivering good news or bad news or neutral news — at least they know where they stand,” Vanderslice said. “And it’s starting to pay dividends. We have a lot of repeat sponsors today.” —C.C.

Banking

the purpose

power

Private banking for businesses and the people who power them

LET’S TAKE ON TOMORROW.

Larry Kravetz and Frank Gilhool

Head of U.S. CRE and CMBS; head of U.S CRE warehouse financing at Nomura

New

Restarting a lending platform at a time when the market changes on a daily basis and cutthroat competition loiters around every corner, is not for the faint of heart. But Larry Kravetz and Frank Gilhool don’t scare easily; in fact they’ve run to the challenge full throttle — and their approach is already paying dividends.

SASB CMBS? You got  it. Conduit CMBS? Comin’ right up. Balance sheet loans? Just say “the Ben.” Warehouse facilities?  Oh, only to the tune of a mere $1 billion (and counting).

First, a timeline. The platform launched just seven months ago, and Nomura closed its first balance sheet loan on Dec. 30. By Jan. 9, it had priced and funded its first SASB deal as sole bookrunner. That same month, it closed roughly $300 million in financing for the collapse of a 2021-vintage CRE CLO on behalf of a mortgage REIT. In February, it was awarded three new SASB assignments (one left lead and two right leads), and in March, it sealed a $150 million loan for Related Ross’ acquisition and repositioning of the Ben hotel in West Palm Beach, simultaneously closing a $23 million mezzanine loan and selling the position. Today, Nomura is actively closing conduit loans and will contribute to both five- and 10-year conduit deals in the second quarter.

“The Ben was a high-profile deal,” Kravetz said. “Even though we’re a team that’s worked together for a long time, it’s a new platform and they put their faith in us. It wasn’t a straightforward deal in that there’s a pretty healthy renovation plan, but we successfully closed it.”

Kravetz and Gilhool arrived at Nomura with an ambitious agenda yet find themselves either on, or ahead of, schedule.

“A big highlight for us is, just last week, we crossed $1 billion outstanding on warehouse [facilities],” Kravetz said. “There’s a little bit of legacy in that, but it’s an impressive milestone.”

“What’s been great about all of this is the reception from the market,” Gilhool said. “It’s been phenomenal. The Nomura platform was so well positioned to bring us in, given all the expertise they had around securitized products and the reach they had, and bringing this piece of the puzzle really resonated with clients. We did have an aggressive business plan, and I did have a billion dollars in warehousing projected for this quarter, but I’m still pinching myself.”

Further, five warehousing facilities are already up and running, but Nomura has nine facilities in various stages of documentation and term sheet negotiations. “It really has been fun,” Gilhool said.

Next up, readying the Nomura CMBS shelf for blastoff. Kravetz expects it to be up and running this quarter. (Editor’s note: Do these guys sleep?!)

But there’s no taking the foot off the gas yet.

“We’re a Japanese firm, so we have a March 31 fiscal year,” Kravetz said during the interview, on March 31. “This is our first time going through it, and today’s the last day of this fiscal year. So I told the team the pressure is really on starting tomorrow morning.” —C.C.

Hilary Provinse

Executive vice president for production and capital markets at Berkadia

Last year’s rank: 28

Berkadia came out on top in 2025 in one sense, finishing as the No. 1 agency lender across Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“We did $35 billion of originations on the debt side, which was up from 2024,” Hilary Provinse said. “Not only were we the largest source of capital, but we did deals with 235 unique capital sources. We touched a lot of different lenders over the course of the year to make sure that our clients got the best execution.”

That production, which included 1,610 total loans, included working with Citigroup to provide a $700 million CMBS loan for an 18-property multifamily portfolio throughout the Sun Belt, $142 million of construction-permanent financing through HUD for a new mixed-use residential development in San Francisco, and a 10-year, $84.1 million refi loan for a mixed-use development in Virginia.

Provinse said that Berkadia’s ability to put all of its specialties to use has been a significant factor in its success.

“We would bring other tools of the platform to our debt clients,” she said. “We did over $16 billion of investment sales transactions, so that provided value to our clients. Oftentimes, we would finance those deals. We have really strong balance sheet lending products that we would offer to our clients that complemented other, products that may not have been accessible through other lenders. We brought on board a new equity and structured capital team, so we were able to put equity structures in place with our clients to deliver debt. We tried to do a good job of complementing our other product lines and then connecting that with our debt execution.”

Provinse said success in today’s market requires fulfilling more than just one client need, and that philosophy led to Berkadia’s excellent 2025.

“Being more of a holistic financial adviser, in the capital market sense, to your clients versus ‘I can just do your debt’ is really important these days,” said Provinse. “I think we did a good job of that last year.” —L.G.

Brannon Hamblen, Michael Moran, Greg Newman and Richard Smith

President; executive managing director; senior managing director; senior managing director at Bank OZK

Last year’s rank: 26

At a time when the fortunes of the construction industry and the data center industry have become so intertwined as to be somewhat dependent on each other, the success of Bank OZK — which doesn’t dabble in that kind of digital infrastructure deal — shows just how entrenched they’ve become as a preferred construction lender.

Last year, the firm booked $5 billion in originations with $28.8 billion in total commitments, with a balanced portfolio that comprised just over a quarter multifamily. This included deals such as a $278 million senior loan to Hines for the first phase of the Riverwalk project in San Diego, a complex deal for a megaproject expected to eventually cost $4 billion.

“We could do a fairly middle-of-theroad multifamily project just as good as anybody else, but I don’t think everybody else can deal with complexity as well as we do,” said Michael Moran, who works on a team with Brannon Hamblen, Greg Newman and Richard Smith. “I would point out that it’s not just the relationships we have with top-tier sponsors, but it’s that we’re not siloed. When it comes to origination, we involve legal, the credit structuring team and the asset

management team to navigate through the complexity.”

Many deals involved complex and even eccentric agreements with municipalities, and much of that action happened in South Florida. OZK capitalized on that geographic shift and landed a number of big deals, included a $475 million loan for Related Ross’ South Flagler House in West Palm Beach, the area’s largest condo project, and a $329 million loan for the Four Seasons Private Residences in Coconut Grove, a Miami development with CMC Group and Fort Partners.

What helped survive and thrive in a year when Liberation Day upended cost assumptions and supply chains for construction projects was patience. A steady hand that can reassure clients that they’ll be around after the shock has been processed — and an experienced team that can find solutions when there’s both extensive competition and existing challenges to find equity to close a deal — can pay off, Moran said

“The amount of debt capital that’s out there right now in the world is the most that I’ve ever seen,” he said. “The competition for good sponsors and sensible locations is just fierce.” —P.S.

Bryan Donohoe

Partner and head of U.S. real estate debt at Ares Real Estate

New

With a $14 billion U.S. commercial real estate debt platform, it’s not surprising that Bryan Donohoe of Ares Real Estate oversaw an impressive $5.7 billion of loan commitments across 40 deals in 2025, with 83 percent of those loans exceeding $100 million.

Since Donohoe came onboard six years ago, he’s helped grow Ares’ CRE credit business by focusing on core-plus debt and value-add opportunistic credit, with the annual momentum and success producing new goals: His intention is to increase originations by 35 percent next year.

“We’ve generally tried to focus where we have what could be characterized as ‘a right to win,’” said Donohoe. “We’re heavier in logistics, given our footprint; heavier in multifamily, especially the last 18 months following the value reset … and it’s similar with self-storage, where we have a vertically integrated West Coast team with a national footprint.”

And then there is the size of these loans.

The firm originated a $585 million senior construction loan for Related Ross’ $772 million two-tower office development at 10 and

15 City Place in West Palm Beach, Fla.; a $450 million senior loan to refinance an 834-unit multifamily asset in Brooklyn; and a $532.7 million senior loan to refinance a 12-asset national logistics portfolio spanning 5 million square feet.

“It’s an echo of what we do on the equity side of the business — we want to lend against assets or properties that we’d otherwise want to use,” explained Donohoe. “We want to lend on an apartment complex that we want to live in, or an industrial property that houses tenants we’d buy goods from, and if we’re lending against a hotel, we want to stay in it.”

Ares has found it’s a strategy that its investor base desires. To wit, over 70 percent of its deals are with repeat sponsors, and the flexibility of Ares’ capital base allows the team to support sponsors at every stage of an asset’s business plan, according to Donohoe.

“We want consistent income, low volatility, and we don’t want capital flows to be interrupted because a given market or asset is no longer in favor,” he said. —B.P.

Michael Comparato and Brian Buffone

Senior managing director and head of real estate; managing director and head of real estate operations at Benefit Street Partners

New

Benefit Street Partners’ commercial real estate team originated nearly $9 billion of real estate investments during 2025.

To understand why BSP had such a strong 2025, it’s worth revisiting the adage that overnight success takes time. As Michael Comparato explains, two decisions helped Benefit Street maintain a clean balance sheet and play offense as the market began to turn: a pre-COVID choice to limit office exposure, and the decision at the height of the multifamily frenzy in late 2021 to avoid `70s and `80s vintage apartment buildings.

That’s led BSP to be one of the most active lenders over the last few years when others remain battered and bruised under the weight of poor investments. When banks failed in 2023, and the market for industrial credit dried up, BSP swooped in and offered private credit. Comparato estimates 80 to 90 percent of BSP’s industrial loans over the last 10 years were closed in the past 36 months because the banks just stopped lending.

In January, BSP completed a $10 billion raise for its BSP Real Estate Opportunistic Debt Fund II, which was not just six times the size of its predecessor fund but oversubscribed. It’s a massive bet on Benefit Street, but also a catalyst to continue being aggressive when other players have to clean up their portfolios.

Comparato, who leads BPS’s real estate division with Brian Buffone, wrote a white paper in 2022 exploring the idea of interest rates remaining relatively high. So far, the market has played out exactly as Comparato predicted. Right now, he sees the market currently showing signs of a rebound, passing through the eye of the storm. It’s a nice place to be, but there’s sure to be turbulence — in this case, in the form of illiquid assets — on the other side.

“If you fast forward a few years and all of this is behind us, there’s going to be a few dead bodies, there’s going to be a few people that lost an arm and or a leg, and some that had a broken finger or two,” he said. “That’s just what happened. You can play with a broken finger. But you can’t if you lose an arm or a leg.” —P.S.

Scott Waynebern Co-managing member at MF1

Last year’s rank: 30

MF1 grew from issuing $4 billion in multifamily bridge loans in 2024 to $5.4 billion in 2025, including $533 million in fixed-rate and $4.9 billion in floating-rate loans.

Scott Waynebern sees several big-picture reasons for the firm’s growth, all having to do with the evergreen success of multifamily investments.

“One of the reasons we focus on multifamily is that it is more resilient and less volatile [given] the technological innovations happening in the economy,” said Waynebern, who makes a comparison with the general disruption caused by the explosion of artificial intelligence.

“AI is creating a class of real estate data centers and potentially creating challenges for the office sector. But it’s not changing the way people live,” said Waynebern. “They want to live in apartments. So multifamily is more resilient.”

MF1 was formed in 2017 as a joint venture between Limekiln Real Estate — Waynebern is that firm’s president — and Berkshire Residential. The firm programmatically securitizes its floating-rate originations within CRE collateralized loan obligations, and issued $4.6 billion

of CLOs in 2025, making it the No. 1 CRE CLO issuer in the market.

MF1’s notable deals over the past year included a $443 million loan on a portfolio of 10 properties consisting of 2,517 units across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and a $171 million fixedrate loan to refinance an MF1 floating-rate loan to the same borrower that, the company said, serves as the initial case study for a floating-to-fixed-rate strategy that MF1 hopes to build on.

The firm recently added a five-year, fixed-rate product to its offerings, further establishing itself as a “one-stop shop” for multifamily financing products, which Waynebern said puts MF1 in the best sector with the right product at the right time.

“All the markets have been moving more toward either five-year fixed or floating,” said Waynebern. “We have big cohorts of five-year and 10-year loans maturing at the same time over the next few years. So the opportunity to lend in multifamily and the health of multifamily, because it’s a more stable asset class and it’s more resilient, makes it a great time to be a multifamily lender.” —L.G.

Nailah Flake, Bradley Weismiller, Zachary Cohn and Karan Nayar

Managing partners; managing director at Brookfield Real Estate Credit

Last year’s rank: 34

It’s rare to find a player on this year’s list who would include a life sciences deal as a notable transaction. But, for Brookfield, the $394 million refinancing of University Park in East Cambridge, Mass., offers a case study in how the real estate credit team works.

The CMBS SASB offering, which closed right before the tariff upheaval in April 2025, was for a lab asset Brookfield used to own and had sold to current owner Blackstone. The combination of operator insight, familiarity with the property, and long-term client relationship anchored a deal in an asset class that has been struggling through an historic downturn. Brookfield understood the value of an out-of-favor asset class and the realities of ownership, and was able to move fast and be decisive.

But that’s what makes this team, which originated roughly $5 billion in loans globally last year, work: Connections to the larger Brookfield firm provide real-time data and insight about real estate markets; a diverse capital pool and expansion of the capital base means more flexibility and creativity in devising unique solutions for tenants; and a portfolio of relationships keep deals flowing. Roughly 60 percent of deals were repeat client relationships, and in the case of two nearly $300 million Manhattan office-to-residential projects with client Vanbarton Group, Brookfield tapped into a well of trust to close whole

Nasir Alamgir, Philip Adkins, Daron Tubian and Justin Preftakes

Head of  U.S. and European real estate debt; head of U.S. real estate debt origination; head of affordable housing investments; and head of construction lending at Barings

Last year’s rank: 43

The credit apparatus at Barings touched all corners of the market in 2025, emphasizing the residential sector but ensuring it invested capital into every asset class.

Barings’ real estate debt platform closed $5.1 billion across 67 transactions in 2025, and had a global total of $6.4 billion in 84 total deals.

The firm’s U.S. volume originated 85 percent of its deal volume into core or core-plus investments, with 53 percent of deals going into the residential space, 23 percent going into hotel and industrial properties, and a surprising 8 percent into office.

“Over the last year, Barings has primarily taken a ‘barbell’ approach to portfolio sector allocation,” said Nasir Alamgir. “[Which means] having a meaningful allocation to multifamily and industrial loans which typically are lower returning, but also selectively layering in higher-returning opportunities such as office and hotel loans where Barings has conviction with the asset and business plan.”

A full 5 percent of Barings’ credit portfolio is invested into affordable housing. No deal reflects the firm’s commitment to that sector better than the

$133.4 million construction loan it provided for the development of 22 Fulton Street, 396-unit mixedincome multifamily property in Downtown Newark, N.J., of which 80 units will be affordable.

“Barings’ ability to provide a no-cost early-rate lock option has been an instrumental asset to our borrowers and banking partners looking to take advantage of interest rate market conditions before their projects are fully baked for closing,” said Daron Tubian.

Other major deals Barings invested into include a $548.5 million loan to refinance Thompson Thrift’s nine-property, 2,500-unit portfolio of multifamily communities across six states; and originating a $303 million debt package with Aareal Capital to refinance a portfolio of seven hotels managed by an affiliate of AJ Capital Partners.

“Our track record spans across multiple credit cycles, originating commercial mortgage loans for over 150 years … dating back to 1866,” said Justin Preftakes, who noted the Barings debt team has originated $87 billion in CRE loans since 2004. “Our team has deep expertise and the ability to maintain key market relationships.” —B.P.

loan originations.

“Our ability to underwrite their business plans has put us in a great position to give our sponsors confidence in our ability to provide certainty of execution and as well as creative solutions to their capital needs,” said Nailah Flake, who works as managing partner alongside Bradley Weismiller and Zach Cohn. Managing Director Karan Nayar rounds out the leadership quartet.

The strategy is to be a single shop to provide all forms of capital with a single point of contact, said Cohn. “The significant majority of capital that we control is our own discretionary capital, so we’re just looking at the relative value of the inbvestment opportunity in front of us and making a decision,” he said. “We’re not doing that and then calling someone else and asking for their opinion.”

In a year with extensive distractions and endless breaking news, it’s vital to have a trusted information source and the ability to act fast.

“We can’t control the macro noise, but what we can control, and what we have access to, is what we’re seeing happening within Brookfield’s $300 billion portfolio,” said Flake. “The headlines are what they are. But then we’re able to kind of ignore the headlines and focus on what’s really happening within our portfolio.” —P.S.

Stephen Rosenberg CEO and founder at Greystone

Last year’s rank: 27

Greystone was the No. 1 multifamily and health care HUD lender for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2025, with originations in those categories totaling $2.6 billion.

This included firm commitments for 40 multifamily properties totaling $1.1 billion, and 83 health care properties totaling $1.5 billion.

All told, this represented 12 percent of total firm commitments issued by HUD, according to Greystone, which, in calendar year 2025, had total transaction volume of $13 billion, including $2.8 billion from Fannie Mae, $2.5 billion from Freddie Mac, $2 billion from FHA/ HUD, and $3 billion in debt and equity placements.

The company also closed its second Israeli bond offering in February 2026 totaling $193 million, following a $160 million offering in December 2024.

Not a bad year for one that Rosenberg categorized as “challenging.”

“With interest rates remaining high and fewer sales happening, our acquisition finance and refinancing businesses were down somewhat,” said Rosenberg.

“But the good news is, we’re pretty much No. 1. We maintained market share.”

In addition to the success at HUD, Rosenberg noted a few other areas of strength that are propelling the company now.

“The thing I am super excited about is our ability to raise capital to expand our bridge loan business, which makes money by itself, but also leads to more permanent financing,” said Rosenberg.

“That’s why we’re in the bridge business. We’re very excited about growing that business.”

Last August also saw Greystone close its first Low-Income Housing Tax Credit fund for $103 million, the proceeds of which will fund the development and preservation of 959 income-restricted units across 11 projects in six states.

“This year, I’m expecting us to do somewhere between $300 and $500 million of LIHTC syndication, which also drives the agency permanent business, which also drives our affordable construction business,” said Rosenberg. “I see affordable on our horizon as a definite growth area.” —L.G.

and

Global head of CRE debt at Nuveen Real Estate; CEO and chief investment officer at Nuveen Green Capital

Last year’s rank: 38

Lending volumes surged in 2025 at both Nuveen Real Estate and Nuveen Green Capital (NGC) as the firms underwent leadership changes.

Nuveen Real Estate executed $4.8 billion of originations globally in 2025, up from $1.7 billion the year before. Global deployment was split roughly evenly between Nuveen’s value-add credit strategies and insurance capital with 61 percent of originations in the U.S.

Jason Hernandez ascended to an expanded role in late 2025 when he moved from head of U.S. real estate debt to global head of commercial real estate debt. Hernandez said Nuven’s versatility with multiple platforms on a global scale distinguishes it in an increasingly crowded private credit real estate market.

“If you look at those who can offer insurance products, core-plus, value-add credit and C-PACE, there are probably a handful of people that can do it, and there’s an even smaller handful that can do it globally,” Hernandez said.

NGC also had a big year, nearly doubling its C-PACE originations with $2.1 billion of volume compared to $1.2 billion in 2024.

The clean energy lending arm of Nuveen shattered its own previous record for a C-PACE loan with a $465 million debt package in December for Post Brothers’ office-to-residential development at 1825-1875 Connecticut Avenue Northwest in Washington, D.C.

The historic transaction was closed four months after NGC executed what was the largest C-PACE financing to date with a $290 million loan for Two Roads Development’s planned Pendry Hotel & Residences project in Downtown Tampa, Fla., in September 2025.

Alexandra Cooley took on an expanded role at NGC in October 2025 when she was promoted to CEO in addition to her chief investment officer position, after her longtime teammate Jessica Bailey was appointed to a newly created role as Nuveen’s head of global infrastructure. Cooley said NGC is poised for further growth in 2026 after a record-breaking 2025, where borrowers got more behind C-PACE as a financing source to make deals pencil.

“We had a lot of really exciting things happening in 2025 with the institutionalization of the C-PACE product and people really understanding how it could help projects come to fruition and senior lenders getting a lot more comfortable with it,” Cooley said. “We were really able to expand what C-PACE could do last year and expanded into new markets and really work with some of the highest quality sponsors out there.” —A.C.

CRE lending never felt so competitive Neck and Neck

Three years after the regional banking crisis of 2023, and a solid 15 years since private credit went mainstream following the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis, it’s abundantly clear that the lending landscape across U.S. capital markets is one of pure, unadulterated competition.

Private credit advocates argue commercial banking is a thing of the past and that debt funds are the future, as their bespoke solutions offer versatility while their nimble teams of specialized originators create more personal lending relationships.

“The banking model continues to be broken, and the ability for private lenders like Peachtree to step in and help fill the gap is only growing with the wall of debt maturities,” said Greg Friedman, managing principal and CEO at Peachtree Group, a debt fund that originated $3 billion of loans in 2025.

Friedman added that his firm saw “huge amounts of opportunities” in 2025 to step in with either direct lending or buying underwater loans outright, which

gave his team the chance to restructure deals back into performing loans.

Other private credit firms, like 3650 Capital, which originated $2.1 billion of deals in 2025, believe their bespoke creative solutions are buttressed by whiteglove service that borrowers typically find at life companies or relationship banks.

“What we’re interested in doing is capturing the borrowers who are true real estate professionals and who appreciate our differentiated approach,” said Jonathan Roth, co-founder and managing partner at 3650 Capital. The firm has a rule that any client must be called back within 24 hours, Roth noted.

But banks will not retreat after a few difficult years under a higher interest rate regime.

The nation’s top commercial bankers carry the weight of tradition and safety, with long-standing federal regulations protecting fortress-like balance sheets, and their advocates argue that only large, international banks have the ability to originate and securitize the

biggest CMBS loans.

“In a highly competitive market, you need a good origination setup, CMBS capital market skills, and you need to have a distribution network and a good secondary trading floor to give liquidity to the business,” explained Dino Paparelli of Deutsche Bank. “We have all of this — we compete.”

UBS’s David Nass, whose team did $10 billion across CMBS, balance sheet and mortgage loans in 2025, said his team developed six distinct businesses across its real estate finance platform that combines balance sheet and CMBS opportunities with its back leverage business.

M&T Bank’s Matt Petrula said his bank’s origination activity is able to jump from construction financings to permanent loans, bridge loans and corporate facilities with the utmost ease.

“Our platform provides a product for every phase of the life cycle of that asset,” said Petrula.  May the best lender win. —B.P.

182 LENDING RELATIONSHIPS.

GROWING EVERY DAY. ONE PLATFORM.

CASE STUDY | JANUARY 2026

WAYNE VILLAGE

WAYNE, NJ

275-UNIT MULTIFAMILY

$63,500,000

FREDDIE MAC

THE CHALLENGES THE EXECUTION

In the current environment, even clean, well-performing deals require a disciplined process on the agency side.

The key challenge here was less about complexity and more about precision:

Ensuring underwriting appropriately captured the asset’s in-place strength

Navigating sizing and structure within standard agency constraints

Maintaining momentum through a process that leaves little room for ambiguity

Meridian worked with the Seller/Servicer to position the deal clearly and keep the process moving. The focus was on aligning expectations early and avoiding re-trading or structural drift later in the process.

The transaction ultimately closed with a $63.5 million Freddie Mac loan, providing a clean takeout aligned with the asset’s profile.

David Nass

Managing director and head of real estate finance at UBS

Last year’s rank: 37

UBS had a strong year by operating in “every part of the credit cycle and every part of the rate cycle,” said David Nass, noting the company’s preference for deep diversification.

“We have developed six distinct businesses on our real estate finance platform, and that’s a combination of balance sheet and CMBS opportunities as well as our back leverage business with our CRE warehouse,” said Nass. “Then we developed an advisory business to help borrowers that need help for overlevered assets that are trapped in CMBS trusts and on balance sheets of banks.”

UBS’s transaction volume in 2025 included $1.7 billion in CMBS — which breaks down to $1.1 billion conduit and $600,000 SASB — as well as balance sheet figures of $3.5 billion in commercial real estate and $5 billion in mortgage finance. The company also executed two CRE CLOs.

Nass makes note of one significant internal change the company implemented in January 2026, which was moving the company’s 18-person CRE lending business from UBS’s wealth management division to Nass’s real estate finance division, with

Pat Crandall, Thomas Whitesell, Jason Baker and Jeff Teetsel

Senior managing director; head of debt investment; senior managing director; senior managing director at Kennedy Wilson

Last year’s rank: 35

The fact that Kennedy Wilson’s debt investment group originated the same $3.6 billion in loans in 2025 as it did in 2024, one year after the firm acquired Pacific Western Bank’s construction loan portfolio, shows that Kennedy Wilson is settling in as a desired and trusted lender for the sector.

“We established ourselves in 2024 and 2025 as a go-to senior lender in the construction space,” said Thomas Whitesell. “We saw more repeat business from repeat borrowers and repeat subject items. We drove home more business from repeat sponsors.”

“Sixty-five percent of our $3.6 billion was relationship business, with either prior sponsors or prior capital partner relationships,” said Pat Crandall. “I think we will continue to see that sort of ratio of business going forward. We’re going to do a lot of repeat business.”

Whitesell credits the firm’s consistency of operation for its solid and growing reputation.

“We’re strictly a construction lender right now,” said Whitesell. “In construction, there’s a problem or two every single day on a site. As a lender, you have to be prepared for that and be able to roll with the punches.”

The firm’s highlight deals of late have included a $306 million construction loan for a high-rise apartment project on the Jersey City, N.J., waterfront; a $254 million construction loan for a purpose-built student housing project at Arizona State University; and an $82 million loan for an office-to-residential conversion project in Alexandria, Va., that will be 100 percent workforce housing.

Whitesell noted that Kennedy Wilson considers itself a partner on its loan projects, going beyond the letter of the deal to help solve problems with a “whatever it takes” attitude.

“We have consistently worked in a very intelligent way with borrowers when they have cost overruns, delays or whatever,” said Whitesell, who works on the debt side with Jason Baker and Jeff Teetsel as well as Crandall. “We’re flexible. We need to help the borrower get the property built. That’s the No. 1 goal. So we’re not like your typical bank, where if you don’t meet the letter of the law in the documents, then it’s like, ‘OK, stop.’ If you have to fix something, we’re more willing to work with you.” —L.G.

the initiative being to originate loans for wealth management clients.

“Now, within my group, we’re originating loans for balance sheet for both institutional and wealth-management clients,” said Nass. “We have more flexibility now when the capital markets are more volatile and provide a little less certainty for execution. It’s given us the opportunity to provide a closing for a borrower that was relying on a CMBS exit, but now we can do it on balance sheet. It’s a new feather in our cap that allows us to work around volatile capital markets.”

One of the company’s major opportunities of late was serving as the lead financial adviser for Sycamore Partners’ taking drugstore chain Walgreens private in August 2025.

“We provided the bridge there, and then took out some of that exposure through SASB CMBS. So we were really happy about that trade,” said Nass. “It was great for the firm, and a great opportunity for us to work closely with Sycamore and provide creative financing solutions for them.” —L.G.

Adam Sasouness and Josh Sasouness

Co-founders and co-CEOs at Dwight Capital

Last year’s rank: 42

Dwight Capital’s rise continued in 2025, and the private lender is showing no signs of slowing down.

The company closed $5 billion of debt across 177 loans from March 2025 to March 2026, nearly double its output from the year-earlier period and 233 percent higher than two years ago. Dwight’s sharp growth is expected to further accelerate in 2026, with $7 billion of lending volume projected for the year.

“Our culture is our No. 1 competitive advantage,” said Josh Sasouness, who co-founded Dwight in 2014 with his brother Adam Sasouness. “We have good people, it’s collaborative, and we have a very holistic approach.”

Dwight also has used versatility as a competitive advantage with multiple platforms providing U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developmentbacked debt as well as construction and bridge debt loans through Dwight Mortgage Trust (DMT), its private real estate investment trust. The firm’s Dwight Healthcare Funding offering launched in 2024, added another lending arsenal for health care facility owners.

DMT closed the largest transaction in Dwight’s

Mathew Wambua and Michael Dury

Vice chairman and head of agency lending; president and CEO at Merchants Capital

Last year’s rank: 33

Merchants Capital generated over $7 billion in transaction volume in 2025, including $3.5 billion on the balance sheet, $3 billion in agency/Federal Housing Administration loans, $600 million in brokered agency/FHA, and $700 million in equity.

The company completed its largest Freddie Mac Q Series transaction to date in 2025 — a $373.3 million securitization of 18 stabilized multifamily mortgage loans comprising 3,047 multifamily units.

A few of the firm’s larger individual transactions included $368.3 million to finance 1,272 affordable housing units at the Manhattanville Houses in West Harlem, and over $316 million to finance Phase 2 of Alafia, a mixed-use affordable development in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

Given that Merchants executed $6.89 billion in debt and equity deals in 2023 followed by a touch over $7 billion in 2024, CEO Michael Dury described last year as one that found the company holding steady amid a turbulent global environment.

“We leaned into our core business, which is workforce and affordable,” said Dury. “I wouldn’t say it’s been a year of growth or a year of contraction.

13-year history in June 2025 with a $230 million bridge loan to LionStone Care for the acquisition of a 19-property skilled nursing and assisted living portfolio in Ohio.

In August 2025, DMT supplied a $155 million bridge loan for Beitel Group to refinance the 405unit 261 and 315 Grand Concourse development in the Bronx’s Mott Haven neighborhood. The refi retired a $135 million construction loan obtained a year earlier to complete the project and provided a “significant cash-out” to the borrower, according to Dwight.

Josh Sasouness said Dwight’s long-standing strategy of direct lending without brokers separates it from the lending competition by establishing deeper borrower relationships. He said 70 to 75 percent of Dwight’s originations were direct loans compared to the industry standard of less than 10 percent.

“It gives us an enormous element of control and direct long-standing interpersonal relationships with sponsors all over the country,” Josh Sasouness said. “It’s a major competitive advantage to have such relationships.” —A.C.

I think we’ve continued to execute on the things we’ve done for years, and we still clear a good amount of business in a very challenging environment.”

Mathew Wambua noted that between falling prices and a slower, less active M&A market, fewer deals were being executed across the entire industry.

Given all that, Wambua sees Merchants’ ability to put $7 billion into the market, primarily focused on income-restricted affordable housing, as “an amazing accomplishment,” especially given “how difficult the market was, the interest rate environment, and the ambiguity underpinning so much of the landscape that everybody was dealing with.

“We look at our primary competitors, and, for any number of reasons, they will jump in and jump out,” Wambua said of the market. “They’ll have monster years, then they will retract and disappear in totality. That is not us. [The year we had was] an incredible feat because our objective is to be a top player in the fields in which we compete at all times, irrespective of the conditions. We achieve that in large part because this is just primarily what we do.” —L.G.

Morris Betesh

Founder and managing partner at Arrow Real Estate Advisors

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Arrow Real Estate Advisors hit the gas pedal during its first full year as a company.

The capital markets advisory firm, which Morris Betesh launched in October 2024, arranged $7 billion of debt originations across 165 transactions in 2025.

“We launched at a time where the market was a little bit tighter, and financial conditions have improved significantly in terms of liquidity and competitiveness amongst lenders,” Betesh said. “We’ve grown the team significantly and our client base has expanded, but the market has improved significantly as well; and both those things together have contributed to a lot of our early success.”

Arrow facilitated a number of large deals over the past year, including a $320 million construction loan in July 2025 from Bridge City Capital and Deutsche Bank for Bushburg Properties’ partial office-to-residential conversion of a 1.2 millionsquare-foot office building at 80 Pine Street in Lower Manhattan.

Another office-to-resi transaction Arrow placed was a $45 million loan in April 2025 from Northwind Group

to CSC Real Estate for the acquisition and pre-redevelopment of the 18-story 300 East 42nd Street office building into a mixed-use tower.

Betesh also brokered a $61 million acquisition loan to a joint venture between David Werner Real Estate Investments and Sam Fisch Development in July 2025 for 5 Hanover Square, a 25-story office building slated for a potential residential conversion. The complex financing involved 99c providing a $41 million acquisition and pre-development loan for the upper floors, while Deutsche Bank supplied a $21 million acquisition loan for five lower floors in a condominium unit occupied by the Ideal School of Manhattan.

Winning so many signature transactions in 2025 stemmed largely from lender relationships Betesh has forged in his 15-year brokerage career.

“We get great execution from lenders and we get faster callbacks from them because most of the deals that we’ve executed with them have been great deals,” Betesh said. “The way we communicate with them and our relationships with them continue to improve.” —A.C.

Russell Schildkraut, Jason Krane, Evan Linkner and Patrick Hanlon

Principals of Ackman-Ziff

Last year’s rank: 36

This year marks a major milestone for AckmanZiff Real Estate Group: a century in the business.

Leading up to its centennial, in the year ending March 1, 2026, the Ackman-Ziff team saw $4.5 billion in transaction volume with a focus on senior debt, subordinate debt and joint venture equity. Fifty-three percent was focused on multifamily, particularly build-to-rent (BTR) and single-family rental (SFR) properties, with the balance split between retail, industrial, hotel, office and land.

The last year was also Ackman-Ziff’s strongest year for joint venture equity since establishing the practice 25 years ago.

“As a firm, we’re always thoughtful about assignments we take on and what can get done, and where we can push and move the needle, and there wasn’t a lot of joint venture equity getting done the last couple of years,” Russell Schildkraut said. “We really identified a couple of places where we thought there would be huge demand, and we went out and proved our thesis.”

Schildkraut oversees Ackman-Ziff alongside fellow principals Jason Krane, Evan Linkner and Patrick Hanlon One of the firm’s

most notable transactions over the last year was $326 million in construction financing for a hotel-to-condominium conversion in New York. The Watson Hotel on West 57th Street in Hell’s Kitchen is being redeveloped by Yellowstone

“It represented about 70 percent loan to cost, and we did it with a life insurance company on a non- recourse basis. So it was really a fantastic execution for our client, and I think a very good deal for the life insurance company,” Schildkraut said.

Among its other notable transactions were a $250 million preferred equity investment secured by a national industrial portfolio, and a $150 million national programmatic joint venture equity for data center-powered land, an area the firm is leaning into.

In its centennial year, Ackman-Ziff plans to continue to grow its emerging digital infrastructure and energy infrastructure business by applying its core principles of fiduciary responsibility to clients and capital sources, clear communication, and transparency. —Z.R.

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Charlie Rose, Teresa Zien, Yorick Starr and Justin Chausse

CEO and head of real estate credit; managing directors at Invesco Commercial Real Estate Finance Trust

Last year’s rank: 39

Charlie Rose’s team at Invesco Commercial Real Estate Finance Trust was quite busy breaking firm records for origination volume in 2025 and bringing the firm’s assets under management within real estate credit past $10 billion for the first time.

Rose’s 35-person credit office at Invesco — led by managing directors Teresa Zien, Yorick Starr and Justin Chausse — originated $4.1 billion in U.S. real estate loans over the last 12 months. The group’s global total of $4.5 billion loans represented a 63 percent year-over-year increase in investment activity.

Rose said his team’s approach to lending is informed by Invesco’s 41-year track record as equity investors, which is built on two pillars: a credit-over-yield discipline, and prioritizing a property-first approach to underwriting

“We only lend on real estate in markets and property types where we have convictions on a last-dollar basis,” he said. “We’re a relationship lender, focused on multi-repeat business, but highly selective with the underlying collateral given that property-first approach that we consistently apply.”

Invesco defines success as originating the highest-quality, floating-rate transitional loans

available in the market and prioritizing borrowers with whom it has personal relationships. In 2025, 64 percent of its $4 billion in loans were made with relationship borrowers, 71 percent of which were sourced through proprietary origination channels.

“The result of that approach is a focus on institutional-quality real estate and the best sponsors in the business,” said Rose.

Last year, Invesco provided Sixth Street Partners and Madera Residential with $390 million in acquisition financing to buy six multifamily properties in Houston holding nearly 2,000 units. It also provided a subsidiary of Bridge Investment Group with $354.6 million to refinance a portfolio of 24 industrial assets, spanning more than 2.4 million square feet across six states.

Half of the firm’s origination volume in 2025 was in multifamily and student housing, with the vast majority of the remaining activity in multitenant industrial assets.

“Those convictions are both aligned with where our sponsors are most active and with our top-down views on the market,” said Rose. “I think that you’ll see our breadth of lending continue to expand into 2026.” —B.P.

Jason Kollander

Partner and head of real estate credit at BDT & MSD Partners

Last year’s rank: 44

BDT & MSD Partners, which formed in 2023 through the merger of BDT & Company and MSD Partners, originated $3 billion in lending volume across approximately 20 transactions. The majority were first-lien senior secured loans across hospitality, residential and mixeduse assets in the year ending March 1, 2026.

A significant concentration of the activity was in Florida, alongside investments in New York, Texas, Colorado and an international hotel portfolio — and much of its business was driven by repeat borrowers.

In the same term, the group focused on expanding its borrower base, bringing in the Allen Morris Company for a $138.5 million senior secured construction loan to finance the development of Ziggurat Coconut Grove, a luxury condo development with Class A office and retail space in Miami. The firm also led an $86 million senior secured construction loan to new borrower Mark IV Capital to finance the initial phase of the District, a master-planned mixed-use development in Round Rock, Texas, adjacent to Dell Technologies’ headquarters. Topping its deal sheet for the year was a

$340 million senior secured loan to repeat borrower Related Ross to refinance One Flagler, a 25-story office tower in West Palm Beach, Fla.

For One Flagler, the firm refinanced its prior construction loan into a bridge-to-permanent financing that focuses on lower loan-to-value, high-quality assets that are either covered by cash flow or on a path to stabilization.

“We wanted to make sure that we have an off-ramp for some of these construction projects that have achieved successful business plan execution,” Jason Kollander said. “One Flagler was one of the first deals that we did within our more bridge-to-permanent financing solution strategy. And we’re really happy to be able to be able to provide that to our partners and borrowers going forward.”

So what’s ahead? Said Kollander: “It’s really continuing to do what we think we do best, which is provide attractive and flexible capital solutions to these borrowers and partners in markets where we have expertise, and continue to do so on a careful, responsible basis.” —Z.R.

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44

Greg Friedman

Managing principal and CEO at Peachtree Group

Last year’s rank: 48

Peachtree Group’s already rapid ascent as a private lender reached new heights in 2025.

The Atlanta-based firm’s credit platform originated $3 billion of loans in 2025, marking 90 percent year-over-year growth. Peachtree’s lending volume rise came on the heels of increasing its originations in 2024 during a challenging debt market to $1.6 billion, up from $1 billion in 2023.

Versatility was evident among Peachtree’s transactions over the past year, with the lender facilitating a number of bridge and construction loans across various property sectors. It also seized opportunities in the transitional property space by buying $600 million of first-mortgage loans from banks.

“There were a huge amount of opportunities for us to step in either with direct lending or even buying loans — where we could go in and restructure those loans — because most of these were sub-performing loans that we restructured back into performing loans,” CEO Greg Friedman said. “The banking model continues to be broken, and the ability for private lenders like Peachtree to step in and help fill the gap is only growing with the wall of debt maturities.”

Among Peachtree’s notable deals over the past year was a $176.5 million retroactive C-PACE loan to fund renovations to Dreamscape Companies’ 2,520-room Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The deal, which closed in under 60 days, is one of the largest C-PACE loans ever and the biggest financing executed by Peachtree in the company’s history.

Peachtree also closed a $130 million construction loan for Vastland Company’s Voce Hotel & Residences project in Nashville.

Friedman said 2026 is shaping up to be another active year. The firm is slated to buy $300 million of loans from banks this spring and poised for an increase in direct lending with a large pipeline already assembled. The lender is also finding more opportunities for C-PACE deals such as the Rio Hotel & Casino transaction with the ability to fund already completed upgrades.

“In this higher-for-longer interest rate environment, we’re doing a lot of C-PACE loans on a retroactive basis, where the property is already completed or they’ve already completed the renovations,” Friedman said. “C-PACE is becoming a bigger factor in discussions on everything we’re doing right now.” —A.C.

Brian Brooks and Ralph Herzka

Chairman and CEO; founder and senior chairman at Meridian Capital Group

Last year’s rank: 45

Meridian Capital Group flipped the script from the last few years and in 2025 rebounded from its bans by federal mortgage market giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

“Last year was the year that Meridian re-entered the market at scale,” CEO Brian Brooks said. Over the year ending March 1, 2026, the company provided mortgage brokerage and advisory services for 900 loans across 34 states, totaling $11.6 billion in financing.

In June the brokerage powerhouse closed its first Freddie Mac-backed loan since its ban was lifted in October 2024, a $173.1 million deal originated by NewPoint Real Estate Capital on behalf of Rubin Schron’s Cammeby’s International to refinance the Monterey, a luxury apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

“When we re-entered the agency market with a trophy property of that size and scale, that said to the world that we are back in a big way,” Brooks said.

In another standout deal of the year, Meridian arranged a $154.5 million construction loan from Benefit Street Partners for Pearlstone Partners to develop the Belvedere, a 158-condo development in Downtown Austin. Looking forward, Meridian will continue to grow its cornerstone focus on health care. But what it really hopes to do in 2026 is create a flywheel effect among the three pistons driving its business — debt capital markets, investment sales and retail leasing — and ensure they feed into each other.

To that end, over the last year Meridian’s investment sales team brokered 52 transactions totaling $913 million, and its retail leasing division negotiated 325 transactions totaling over 675,000 square feet.

“We work really hard to provide our clients with really good solutions,” Ralph Herzka said. Meridian’s never taken its eye off the ball, he said, and the firm will “continue to perform for our clients.” —Z.R.

Robert Schwartz and Joshua Crane

Co-founders at S3 Capital

S3 Capital has carved a niche in multifamily construction lending over the past 13 years that culminated in a banner year for the non-bank lender in 2025, with $2.6 billion in total origination across 137 construction and development loans.

“Market dynamics have given us a meaningful tailwind,” Robert Schwartz said. “While a significant amount of capital has flowed into the bridge lending space, regional banks have been far less active in construction. That has opened up more opportunity for lenders like us and enabled us to considerably increase our market share.”

S3 has nearly doubled its origination volume each year for three consecutive years. Schwartz attributed it to their relationships with developers, over 50 percent of which are repeat borrowers. Schwartz noted S3’s book of over 200 active construction loans is still growing, with $4.2 billion in assets currently under management.

The company’s vertically integrated lending model, in which in-house construction and lending teams work alongside borrowers, has also won the confidence of investors.

“Our fully integrated lending model gives us real-time visibility into what’s happening on-site and the ability to act quickly, pivot, and work with borrowers to find solutions,” Schwartz said. That strategy has been proven out in the 820 loans with an aggregate volume of over $8.3 billion since the firm’s inception, he noted.

In the last year, Schwartz and fellow founder Joshua Crane led transactions such as a $300 million construction loan in Astoria, Queens, for a 26-story tower and three additional mid-rise buildings totaling 731 units, and a $255 million construction loan in Edgewater, N.J., for a 25-story apartment tower with 381 units.

S3 works extensively in New York, which aligns well with the firm’s background in providing loans for public-private development.

“Mayor Mamdani’s goal of building 200,000 affordable units over the next decade speaks to the scale of the housing need in New York. We believe S3 is well positioned to support that effort given our long track record of financing public-private developments,” Crane noted. “We are excited to provide the capital that will help bring the next wave of housing supply online and thereby meaningfully support the city’s affordability goals.”

The firm has recently made a strategic push into Texas. It closed its first deal in the Dallas-Forth Worth area in 2025, and has three additional projects in the pipeline. It’s also growing across the Sun Belt with a presence in Florida, the Carolinas and Nashville. It plans to enter Philadelphia in 2026.

S3 has worked on close to 300 public-private projects across the country and has financed some 3,600 units of affordable housing across some of the markets that need it most in New York and New Jersey. —Z.R.

Max

Herzog and Marko Kazanjian

Executive managing director; senior managing director at Marcus & Millichap’s Institutional Property Advisors

New

Max Herzog and Mark Angelo “Marko” Kazanjian have led a rapid rise of Institutional Property Advisors’ capital markets platform since the duo joined from JLL in 2023. Herzog and Kazanjian, who were recruited to extend IPA’s footprint in the New York City market, reached new heights in 2025, facilitating loans for large Manhattan office-to-residential conversions while expanding to other areas of the East Coast.

“We left JLL two and half years ago to come here to IPA and build the platform in the Northeast on the capital market side, and so we’ve been able to do that because they’ve given us the runway to do that,” Herzog said. “We have good support, but also we’ve gone from a team of three to a team of 13.”

In a nine-month period from May 15, 2025, to Feb. 15, 2026, the Herzog-Kazanjian team arranged $2.6 billion of lending volume across 48 transactions.

IPA’s signature transaction over the last year involved a $720 million construction loan in May 2025 from Madison Realty Capital for the conversion of the former Pfizer headquarters at 219 and

235 East 42nd Street into 1,600  apartment units. The deal negotiated on behalf of Metro Loft and David Werner Real Estate Investments marked the largest office-to-resi conversion in U.S. history.

The Herzog-Kazanjian team also facilitated a $146.5 million construction loan in January 2026 for an office-to-condominium conversion of 419 Park Avenue South by Deutsche Bank on behalf of Elad Group.

The year ahead is poised to be another strong one with around $1 billion in transaction volume closed in the first quarter and a large pipeline ahead. In addition to remaining active with a number of Manhattan office property deals, IPA is also targeting financings in the Southeast, a strategy that was further bolstered by Kazanjian’s move to South Florida last year.

“If you have boots on the ground and you’re physically located here, there’s a lot more opportunity,” Kazanjian said. “Max and I have been partners for a decade, and we had the confidence that Max and the majority of the team in New York could continue to operate while I came down here to build our presence and our business.” —A.C.

Jonathan Roth, Toby Cobb and Justin Kennedy

Co-founders and

managing

Last year’s rank: Honorable Mention

In its ninth year of operation, 3650 Capital continued to distinguish itself through the variety of products it offers clients and the emphasis it has always placed on the human touch in borrowerlender relationships.

The firm originated $2.1 billion of CRE loans in the last 12 months across multiple investment platforms: 3650’s real estate credit solutions (RECS) provided short-term value-add financing, SASB debt and transitional loans; its stable cash flow (SCF) lending offers borrowers an alternative to traditional conduit CMBS; and its special situations vertical provides equity, loan purchases and structured capital solutions to deals.

“As a young firm, every year is an opportunity for more borrowers to get to know who we are and our priorities,” said Toby Cobb. “And what they’re learning is that our value proposition is different and we’re doing something unique.”

3650 Capital prides itself on offering creative solutions across the capital stack while providing the personal care and attention of client services that are more often seen at life companies or relationship-minded banks, according to Jonathan Roth.

“We’ve been doing this long enough and we

partners at 3650 Capital

have enough loans we’re originating, and getting repaid, that there’s pattern recognition from the borrowing and brokerage communities,” said Roth. “What we’re interested in doing is capturing the borrowers who are true real estate professionals and who appreciate our differentiated approach.”

Signature deals in 2025 for the firm included a $143 million mezzanine loan for the $513 million construction of One Brickell Riverfront, a 784-unit multifamily tower in Miami; a $55 million refinancing for Shaw Park Plaza, a 15-story, 278,000-squarefoot office complex in St. Louis; and securing $215 million in new capital from Mubadala Investment Company and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, both repeat investors.

3650 Capital lent into all asset classes in 2025, but none with more conviction than multifamily: Residential lending made up 28 percent of the RECS strategy, 19 percent of the SCF strategy; and 100 percent of the special situations vertical.

“We have multifamily development and property management experience,” explained Justin Kennedy. “And the inherent stability of multifamily has always made it an attractive asset class.”—B.P.

Justin Guichard, Aaron Greenberg, Amiyr Jackson and Ainslee Burns-Roberts

Co-head of real estate and portfolio manager for real estate debt; managing director and assistant portfolio manager for real estate debt; senior vice president for real estate debt; senior vice president for real estate debt at Oaktree Capital

Last year’s rank: 43

In October 2025, Brookfield, which had already owned 74 percent of Oaktree since 2019, acquired the rest, placing the credit manager fully under Brookfield’s control.

Justin Guichard describes the union as something of a best of both worlds scenario.

“We continue to run independent teams, with the benefit of great interaction,” Guichard said. “We both benefit from one another’s expertise, whether that’s in particular areas of the real estate market or the credit markets. But we will continue to run independently.”

Oaktree saw transaction volume of $1.8 billion over the past year. The company’s real estate credit platform manages around $10 billion in assets under management, focused on private credit and debt securities, both residential and commercial.

Guichard breaks it down for Commercial Observer.

“Within that, we would include RMBS, CMBS and CRE CLOs as an opportunity, as well as private credit, which could include loans against commercial real estate assets, multifamily, self-storage, and residential real estate

assets,” said Guichard. “So that could be residential for sale, like condominiums or other residential development opportunities, as well as corporate credit. And corporate credit could either be private or public, depending on the opportunity.”

Notable transactions for Oaktree over the past year have included a $125 million multifamily refinance for a 228-unit apartment complex in Downtown Glendale, Calif., $85 million for a student housing project in the Bay Area, and a $135 million private credit investment for a hotel in the Phoenix area.

Guichard said that Oaktree is dedicating a lot of time and energy to the private credit side. That includes via team members Aaron Greenberg, Amiyr Jackson and Ainslee Burns-Roberts.

“I would characterize that as for-rent housing — multifamily and student housing would fall under that — or sale housing, which would be products like residential transition loans,” Guichard said. “Then a smaller allocation would go into areas like hospitality, industrial, and other major food groups within commercial real estate.” —L.G.

Raphael Fishbach, Ronnie Gul and Steve Fried

Co-CEOs; head of originations at Mesa West Capital

Last year’s rank: 50

Mesa West Capital has spent the last year meticulously analyzing compelling opportunities, resulting in a total transaction volume of $2 billion between March 2025 and March 2026.

“We remain disciplined in pursuing transactions where returns are appropriately aligned with risk,” Raphael Fishbach, Ronnie Gul and Steve Fried said in a joint statement to Commercial Observer. “With many traditional lenders continuing to sit on the sidelines, Mesa West is well positioned to do what it has consistently done — provide moderate- leverage financing to strong sponsors in top-tier markets, secured by high-quality real estate.”

The firm focuses its strategy on institutionally owned, high-quality real estate that is sponsored by “top-tier operators.”

One of the largest transactions Mesa West worked on this year was providing $201.5 million of acquisition debt to a joint venture between Interstate Equities and PGIM for four multifamily properties in Downtown Seattle and in the San Francisco Bay cities of Mountain View, Redwood City and Sunnyvale, Calif.

“That was a competitive process,” Fishbach told Commercial Observer about the $201.5 million deal. “Ultimately, we were successful just given our long relationship with the borrower and being able to provide that certainty of execution. At the end of the day, these are the types of sponsors that have choices on who they want to do business with. And, so, we were able to win something that was very competitive.”

Looking at the rest of 2026, Fishbach couldn’t get specific on what Mesa West has in the works, but he did say to expect a continuation of the kind of activity from the latter part of 2025.

“There’s no denying that there’s challenging economic backdrops and geopolitical tensions, as well as questions about rates and whatnot,” he said. “But we’re still seeing a healthy pipeline and trying to take advantage of opportunities where we think the credit on the pricing makes sense. We are active in the market.” —A.S.

Honorable Mention

Ran Eliasaf Founder and managing partner at Northwind Group

Last year’s rank: 40

After a 12-month period from March 2024 to March 2025, in which — deep breath —Northwind originated $1.7 billion in term loan placements for its health care platform and originated another $662 million across 10 bridge loans of broader commercial real estate projects, with an emphasis on office-to- residential conversions in New York City, construction loans and acquisition and pre- development bridge financings, the firm could finally exhale a sigh of relief.

Across the following March-to-March time span, Northwind executed $3.36 billion of total transaction activity, including $2.7 billion across health care credit and structured finance including advisory, equity, and debt investment. Not bad at all.

In November 2025, Northwind announced the final close of Northwind Healthcare Debt Fund II (NHDF II) with a total capitalization of $342.5 million. The fund’s target had been $250 million.

“The final close of NHDF II capital raise represents a significant milestone for our health care credit platform and is our largest fund to date in the strategy,” Ran Eliasaf

said at the time. “We focus on providing acquisition- bridge capital to income-producing portfolios of skilled nursing and senior living assets in select states in U.S. leading owner/operators who prioritize patient care, invest in their organizational culture, and implement innovative technologies to enhance clinical outcomes.”

Northwind said that it closed $126.3 million of mezzanine loan originations though the fund, subordinate to $509.2 million in senior financings.

Beyond the fund, Northwind closed $2 billion, including $1.7 billion in term loan placements, $65 million in accounts receivable facilities and $210 million in asset sales.

Other Northwind deals this past year included a $135 million first mortgage supporting a major Midtown office-to-residential conversion, a $90 million structured financing for a 430unit residential conversion, a $113 million acquisition and pre-development bridge financing in Brooklyn Heights, and a $58 million senior acquisition loan for a Chicago office asset acquired through court-supervised foreclosure. —L.G.

Social

Debt Deals of the Week

Morgan Stanley Refinances SoCal Self-Storage Portfolio With $64M Loan

A California self-storage company has secured refinancing for five properties at an inflection point for the niche real estate sector.

Morgan Stanley provided $64 million for the portfolio owned by operator SoCal Self Storage, property records show. Talonvest Capital arranged and announced the fixed, 10-year, interest-only, nonrecourse permanent financing, but did not disclose the name of the lender.

The portfolio includes 3,643 storage units totaling 344,616 net rentable square feet. Four properties are in the Southern California markets of Hollywood and Northridge in Los Angeles, as well as Pasadena and Rancho Santa Margarita. A fifth location is in Sacramento.

Talonvest’s Eric Snyder, Kim Bishop, Mason Brusseau and Lauren Maehler facilitated the financing and said the self-storage properties demonstrate strong fundamentals, including consistent occupancy and durable cash flow.

However, the nationwide self-storage boom is running into speed bumps as oversupply, slower migration and local pushback reshape the sector. Despite record usage and ongoing development, U.S. self-storage occupancy has softened and municipalities are restricting new facilities, making existing developments more valuable—Greg Cornfield

Walker & Dunlop Provides $1.7B Refi for Starwood Affordable Housing Portfolio

Starwood Capital has sealed a $1.7 billion debt package to refinance a national portfolio of 12,955 predominantly affordable rental housing units across 52 properties.

Walker & Dunlop originated the 10-year, Freddie Mac-backed loans for Starwood Capital’s Starwood Real Estate Income Trust (SREIT) that acquired the assets spread across 10 states from Strata Equity Group in November 2021. The deal was closed by W&D’s capital markets institutional advisory group consisting of Dustin Stolly, Aaron Appel, Jonathan Schwartz, Keith Kurland, Adam Schwartz, Sean Reimer, Michael Stepniewski and Michael Ianno

“This significant portfolio financing reflects Walker & Dunlop’s ability to structure and execute large-scale financing solutions for the world’s largest and most sophisticated institutional clients,” Willy Walker, W&D CEO and chairman, said in a statement. “Financings of this size and complexity require a coordinated and collaborative team of bankers and underwriters.”

Walker also credited Stolly, senior managing director, with leading the transaction alongside the W&D capital markets team and Freddie Mac in a refi that positions “the Strata portfolio for sustained performance and continued long-term success.”

SREIT, a non-traded real estate investment trust, acquired the Strata portfolio in November 2021 for an undisclosed

Apple

Bank Provides

The Kaufman Organization has secured $42 million to refinance Nelson Tower, a 46-story, 510,000-square-foot Art Deco office building in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, Commercial Observer can first report.

Apple Bank provided the debt, while the JLL Capital Markets team led by Aaron Niedermayer arranged the transaction.

Niedermayer noted in a statement that Apple Bank was attracted to the deal due to Nelson Tower’s location in the Penn District, along with the positive leasing metrics of the Midtown neighborhood, the experience of the Kaufman Organization, and low leverage on the asset.

“The Nelson Tower building is a highly accessible, well-performing Midtown asset with durable tenancy and generational sponsorship,” said Niedermayer.

Located at 450 Seventh Avenue at the corner of West 34th Street, beside Pennsylvania Station and the recently

purchase price. At the time, it consisted of 15,460 units in 62 multifamily communities.

The W&D refi includes a smaller collateral reflecting SREIT divesting from some of the properties, including selling a 360-unit complex in Parker, Colo., to Bell Partners for $103.3 million in early 2025, MultiHousing News reported. The Strata portfolio included properties in California, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland,

North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, according to MultiHousing News.

“Starwood is proud to own and support workforce housing communities,” Jonathan Pollack, president of Starwood Capital, said in a statement. “With a large majority of units in high-growth, high-migration markets, we believe the fundamentals are strong for the long term for our lenders and investors.—Andrew Coen

$42M Refi for Nelson Tower

constructed Moynihan Train Hall, Nelson Tower opened in 1930 and was most recently renovated in 2019.

The Kaufman Organization purchased the building in 1946 and has since invested into capital improvements, which include a new lobby, modernized elevators, conference suites, and a rooftop lounge and terrace with striking views of Manhattan.

In a statement, Steve Kaufman of the Kaufman Organization called Nelson Tower “a cornerstone of our portfolio for decades,” and noted that the asset is expected to benefit from the $7 billion Penn Station redevelopment project set to begin in 2027 and be overseen by the U.S. Department of Transportation

“This financing reflects both the strength of the asset and the continued evolution of the Penn District,” Kaufman added. “We believe the property is well positioned to benefit from the neighborhood’s ongoing transformation.”—Brian Pascus

Oak Funding Refis N.J. Office Campus With $80M Loan

A joint venture between Rubenstein Partners and Vision Real Estate Partners has sealed an $80 million loan to refinance a suburban office asset in central New Jersey, Commercial Observer has learned.

Oak Funding supplied the loan for the sponsorship’s 524,859-square-foot Latitude office complex in Parsippany, N.J.

The two-building property, which sits on a 35-acre campus, has improved to more than 90 percent occupied from 32 percent leased when Rubenstein Partners and Vision Real Estate Partners assumed ownership in 2018, according to Oak Funding.

“The combination of basis protection and tenant credit quality made this a compelling opportunity,” Jeremy Levart, co-founder and principal of Oak Funding, told CO. “Beyond the in-place fundamentals, the property has an active leasing pipeline of over 200,000 square feet that represents meaningful additional upside for the campus.”

Cushman & Wakefield negotiated the debt with a team consisting of Chuck Kohaut, Brad Domenico, Alexander Hernandez and Jack Subers

Located at 369–399 Interpace Parkway 32 miles west of Midtown Manhattan, the Latitude property has a variety of tenants that include biopharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, which signed a 96,300-square-foot lease for its East Coast hub in 2022. The office campus has 30,000 square feet of amenity space that includes two fitness centers, a golf simulator and a pickleball court.

Levart credited Rubenstein Partners and Vision Real Estate Partners with making a “bold capital commitment” soon after acquiring Latitude by investing $47 million to reposition the campus with a glass atrium connecting the two buildings, a new parking structure and shared amenity space.

“That investment transformed Latitude from a largely vacant multi-tenant complex into a true corporate destination,” Levart said. “The results speak for themselves with over 520,000 rentable square feet of leasing activity since acquisition, including multiple headquarters-level commitments from investment-grade tenants.”

Levart added that the Parsippany area is a strong office submarket since more than 1 million square feet has been permanently removed through conversions to residential or industrial uses.

Rubenstein Partners and Vision Real Estate Partners did not return requests for comment.—A.C.

ACRE Lands $123M to Build Second Miami Rental

ACRE, previously known as Asia Capital Real Estate, secured $123 million in financing to build a second multifamily development in Miami’s Upper Eastside neighborhood, property records show.

Canyon Partners provided the floating-rate debt for Adela II at MiMo Bay at 685 Northeast 64th Street, just south of Legion Park near Biscayne Boulevard in the MiMo Biscayne Boulevard Historic District.

Earlier this year, local officials approved plans for a 337-unit development, where 20 apartments will be reserved for those making between 80 and 120 percent of the area median income. The Corwil Architectsdesigned project will also include 510 parking spots. The developer purchased the 2.6-acre site for $19 million.

As part of the agreement with the City of Miami, ACRE will build public parking and make a $1 million donation to the office of Miami City Commission Commissioner Christine King to use within her district.

The six-story development will rise just west of the Adela at MiMo Bay building, which ACRE completed in 2020. Last year, Nuveen Real Estate provided $72 million to refinance the five-story, 236-unit building.

A representatives for Canyon Partners did not respond to a request for comment.

Julia Echikson

Genesis Capital Provides $49M Construction Loan for

Evolve Companies has secured $48.5 million in construction financing to build Evolve Wynwood 35, a new 141-unit mid-rise apartment in the Wynwood submarket just north of Downtown Miami.

Genesis Capital provided the construction debt, while Northmarq’s Chris Hammel arranged the transaction. The South Florida Business Journal first reported

news of the financing.

Construction is expected to be completed in 2028.

“This will be an exciting 141-unit project with tremendous visibility from Interstate 95 and Interstate 195,” said Hammel.

Located at 535 Northwest 35th Street in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood — an

arts and entertainment district just off Biscayne Bay — Evolve Wynwood 35 is set to rise eight stories and feature studios to two-bedroom apartments.

Amenities at the building will include a resort-style pool, outdoor kitchens, coworking spaces, a gym and yoga studio, a dog park and pet spa, and on-site garage parking for residents.—B.P.

ChartFinance

CRE Loan Spreads Tighten Across Property Sectors

By Mike Haas

Commercial real estate loan spreads have compressed meaningfully over the trailing 12 months, improving refinancing conditions for borrowers across the four major property sectors. CRED iQ’s proprietary loan analytics show 10-year CRE spreads to U.S. Treasurys tightening between 12 and 18 basis points from late April 2025 through the end of 2026 first quarter, with multifamily leading the move and industrial lagging.

Where do CRE loan spreads stand as of Q1 2026?

As of March 31, 2026, CRED iQ-tracked spreads over the 10-Year U.S. Treasury on 60 to 65 percent loan to value (LTV) ratio permanent CRE loans stand at 154 basis points for multi-family, 162 basis points for industrial, 176 basis points for retail, and 220 basis points for office. With the 10-Year Treasury at 4.25 percent as of April 8, these spreads translate to implied coupon rates of roughly 5.79 percent for multifamily, 5.87 percent for industrial, 6.01 percent for retail, and 6.45 percent for office. The 66-basis-point gap between office and multifamily captures the persistent sector-specific credit concerns still embedded in lender pricing.

How have CRE loan spreads moved over the past year?

The tightening has been broad-based but uneven. Multifamily compressed 18 basis points from 172 bps in late April 2025; industrial tightened 12 basis points from 174 bps; retail tightened 17 basis points from 193 bps; and office tightened 17 basis points from 237 bps. Office spreads were particularly sticky through mid-2025, holding near 233 to 237 bps until a stepwise tightening began in November 2025. The most meaningful leg of compression across all four property types occurred in the first quarter of 2026, coinciding with moderating Treasury volatility and renewed conduit issuance activity.

Why does office still price as an outlier?

Despite the year-over-year improvement, office remains roughly 66 bps wider than multifamily and 58 bps wider than industrial. CRED iQ delinquency and special servicing data continue to show elevated distress in the office sector, and lenders are pricing that credit risk into spreads on even well-underwritten permanent loans. The wider office pricing also reflects continued caution around rollover risk heading into the 2026 maturity wall. Retail and industrial have converged closer to multifamily as credit performance in those sectors has remained comparatively stable.

What does this mean for

2026 CRE refinancing?

Tighter spreads combined with a 10-Year Treasury anchored around 4.25 percent and the 30-day average Secured Overnight Financing Rate near 3.65 percent are creating a more constructive refinancing backdrop than borrowers faced 12 months ago. CMBS conduit 10-year pricing currently sits near 250 basis points over the benchmark, while life company 10-year quotes have narrowed to roughly 170 bps at 50 to 65 percent LTV. For sponsors facing 2026 maturities, the current environment may offer the most executable refinancing window since the post-2022 rate shock.

Mike Haas is the founder and CEO of CRED iQ.

The Takeaway

The number of mortgages filed with the New York City Department of Finance rose 11.06 percent in March from February to 663. Lending was up in nearly every major property sector, led by industrial, which saw a 54.17 percent monthly bump to 37 financings. Loans for mixed-use-retail properties rose 20.24 percent month-over-month to 202, while transactions for office assets were up 26.67 percent to 38 debt deals.

New York City refinances more than doubled the number of purchases in March.

J.P. Morgan Chase maintained its long-standing spot as the Big Apple’s top commercial real estate lender in March with 105 loans, up from 69 in February. Cathay Bank was once again in second place 25 financings, with Ponce Bank taking the third position after ranking outside the top 10 the previous month. Peapack Private Bank & Trust finished in fourth with 13 transactions.

New York City investment sales rose in Brooklyn and the Bronx but fell in Manhattan and Queens. (Staten Island is not tracked.)

The most active New York City ZIP codes for March were largely centered in Brooklyn.

Central City Association. “I think that the city’s confidence has translated into a much more active real estate market.”

As Lall puts it, as more anchor locations get stabilized and attract reinvestment, and more efforts to connect these corridors succeed, momentum will continue. New destinations will help energize downtown, or bring more visitors into its orbit, including the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opening in September — 10 minutes from downtown and next to the University of Southern California campus — and the Colburn School’s new concert hall.

The city’s transit system has also expanded, including a new D Line connecting downtown to UCLA underneath busy Wilshire Boulevard, making it easier to draw talent to downtown’s offices and ferry Angelenos in for entertainment. Recent ridership figures for Metro show Friday night and weekend activity has actually surpassed pre-pandemic levels. And an increasing number of schools and universities have opened satellite campuses or new buildings downtown, such as Michigan, Arizona State, UCLA and USC, seeking to create a critical mass of talent, human capital and access to employers.

But with every step forward, there’s also challenges thwarting any large-scale transformation, including the massive scale of downtown and the surrounding areas. DTLA itself is one-fourth the size of Manhattan, and office vacancies have more than doubled since before the pandemic, rising from 14 percent in 2019 to over one-third today. Those post-COVID doldrums have also downgraded downtown’s dollar value. A report last fall from BAE Urban Economics found 54 office buildings in the neighborhood at immediate risk of devaluation, which would translate into $70 billion in lost value over the next decade.

There’s also the perennial difficulties developers have been flagging about working in Los Angeles. The city’s new hotel minimum wage — set to hit $30 an hour by 2028 — is putting a damper on the hospitality and tourism boom attached to the coming calendar of global events, and Measure ULA’s transfer tax still has owners and multifamily developers thinking twice and worried about profit margins.

As Los Angeles embarks on its mega-event era, devaluation and reuse may fuel a downtown surge

BY PATRICK SISSON

n occasionally grimy and gritty sweep of faded theaters, empty storefronts and pockets of prolonged activity, Downtown Los Angeles offers a different perspective, block by block. But, amid a recently rocky and decentralized Southern California office market, Downtown Los Angeles has routinely been an area on the cusp of something better.

Forget Hollywood redemption stories: Downtown is a real estate resurrection that’s always about to happen.

And, just like the latest reboot, the giant, 56.5 millionsquare-foot Downtown L.A. commercial real estate market is seeing more signs of turnaround and transformation, despite being battered by years of increased office and retail vacancies, devaluations and decreased demand.

“It’s not a ghost town narrative, the market is relatively active and transitioning,” said Marco Chung, senior market intelligence analyst for Avison Young. “Data shows there’s a significant chunk of capital working to redefine the office sector downtown.”

While the sprawling DTLA market may not be completely ready for its closeup during L.A.’s burgeoning mega-event era — including this summer’s World Cup soccer matches and the 2028 Olympics — preparations for waves of visitors,

and a recent surge in opportunistic investment, are shifting the narrative.

“We have the world stage at our doorstep, and, in many ways, it’s still the epicenter,” said Jessica Lall, CBRE’s downtown managing director.

Few metaphors literally and figuratively loom over downtown like the Oceanwide development, the “Graffiti Towers” that currently have two bids to rescue and complete the unfinished residential megaproject. With dignitaries for the Olympic Games set to stay across the street from Oceanwide at the Fig, any forward movement will be a “huge, real-time positive for downtown,” said Lall. “You can’t have those people staring at graffiti.”

The city’s arduous decision to spend $2.7 billion on the Convention Center expansion, which adds roughly 700,000 square feet of space — adjacent to Crypto.com Arena and the Graffiti Towers — has been criticized as a significant financial miscue in the lead-up to the Olympics. But it’s also been greeted by many in the real estate community as a sign of the city’s commitment.

“The city approving and immediately commencing construction of the convention center was what a lot of people in the private industry needed to see happen,” said Edgar Khalatian, a board member of the downtown advocacy group

The real catalysts of real estate activity, however, might be a combination of new megaprojects set to break ground soon, the rise of a new class of opportunistic owner-occupiers, and a new class of investors seeing upside amid downtown’s recently depressed office market.

The largest such venture is Fourth & Central, the Rauch family project that is set to transform 7.6 acres of cold-storage facilities into a $2 billion mini-neighborhood boasting nearly 1,600 rental units and 401,000 square feet of office space. The project earned unanimous approval from the City Planning Commission in November, with ownership hoping to be greenlighted by the City Council after scheduled hearings in May and June. Set to include significant public open space, Fourth & Central is being billed as not just a downtown destination, but something that becomes a landmark and attracts visitors.

“The Rauch family believe downtown is in the process of rebounding, and are willing to back up this belief with their money, with full anticipation that it will be built,” said Khalatian, who also functions as land use counsel for the project. “This is the type of development that downtown has been craving, and we are excited at the opportunity to deliver it.”

Breaking ground when the market has hit bottom may seem risky, but it may actually be timed to ride a wave of momentum, as buyers see long-term upside in the market’s low acquisition costs.

The recent owner-occupier wave exemplifies that sentiment. Capital Group recently paid $210 million for Bank of America Plaza, where it plans to create a vertical campus for its 2,100 employees, and Los Angeles County bought the Gas Company Tower for $200 million in a foreclosure sale in 2024. The City of Los Angeles also plans to purchase 865 South Figueroa Street for $92.5 million — a tower with

an assessed value of $248 million — once it gets official approval in May.

“I think the pricing has hit a point where it makes sense to buy your building and to operate and consolidate downtown,” said Lall. “That’s a momentum shift that is happening literally as we speak.”

Additionally, a crop of new owners, especially family offices, has also brought new capital into the central business district, in many cases picking up properties after the momentous Brookfield defaults since the pandemic hit. Uncommon Developers picked up Figueroa at Wilshire, a 52-story tower downtown, for $210 million last June, a 40 percent discount from its last sale 20 years ago. Ryan Hekmat, Uncommon’s co-founder and co-managing partner, told Commercial Observer last year that he had exceptional optimism around downtown’s rebirth. It helps that he moved fast enough to lock in a low value that can ideally ride improving conditions downtown and deliver tremendous value over the long run.

“They’re not looking for any quick flip,” Chung said of the new class of owners. “They’re trying to hold for more than a decade. And, in order to do that, they are purchasing buildings at a 50 percent to 60 percent discount. They have the pricing power now to change the game, and it’s a structural shift.”

These newcomers aren’t as experienced with owning and operating office assets, said CBRE’s Lall, but she chooses to see the fresh infusion of investment as a positive sign.

“Capital is flowing right now,” said Chung. “If you’re asking me if I think it’s the bottom of the cycle, I don’t. I think it’s just a completely new picture that we’re seeing in the Downtown L.A. market.”

Fourth & Central also underscores downtown’s unique ability, at least within Los Angeles, to build dense housing without the pushback that plagues developers nearly everywhere in the city. As Lall said, downtown represents about 1 percent of the city’s land and 20 percent of recent growth in residential units over the last decade, and scores of new residential developments — from years of successful adaptive reuse across the Arts District and elsewhere — still achieve 90 percent or higher occupancy.

There’s also talk of more office-to-residential conversions to further activate the core and swap out empty, antiquated workplaces with housing and, importantly, customers for nearby retail. Multifamily developer Jamison Services announced plans in January to convert the 33-story Health Plan Tower on Seventh Street into nearly 700 residential units, one of the largest such conversions in the city’s history.

The recently approved update to the city’s successful adaptive reuse rules, the Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, speeds up approval and construction timelines for structures built in 2011 or earlier, cutting costs and opening a new host of conversion candidates. It’s not a panacea for the region’s housing crisis — everybody wants a silver bullet, said Lall — but it’s adding to the momentum. RentCafe found ongoing conversions in L.A. will add roughly 4,400 units when finished.

Even with these pockets of progress, the scale of downtown’s vacant or underutilized space can’t be underestimated. Some downtown submarkets have storefront vacancies hovering around 40 percent. With retail as a lagging indicator of activity, it’ll take time to generate enough foot traffic to activate wide swaths of underutilized space.

Lall said she sees bright spots, with new hospitality houses for the World Cup, as well as leases for the L.A. Organizing Committee’s downtown offices at 1150 South Olive Street and a 108,000-square-foot lease from On Location, a hospitality provider and ticket seller for the Summer Games. But activating the streetscape and bringing more people and investments back downtown remains a long-term project that’s just starting to turn a corner.

“I do think the Games are going to be symbolic and bring our city together, with a feeling of pride again,” Lall said. “I think that has been lost. There was such pride in the DTLA community, and I sense it coming back.”

The Plan

WHO’S WHAT AT LINDEN LANE

DEVELOPER: CADENCE PROPERTY GROUP SALES: BROWN HARRIS STEVENS ARCHITECT/INTERIOR DESIGNER: ARCHITECTURE OUTFIT LANDSCAPING:

DESIGN GROUP

By Amanda Schiavo

City life can be hell, but in this Hell’s Kitchen condo building at 349 West 51st Street, developer Cadence Property Group wanted to create a hidden oasis that provides a silent escape from the bustling neighborhood surrounding it.

Known as Linden Lane, the 55,000-square-foot, 32-unit condominium was designed in partnership with landscaper LaGuardia Design Group to offer homeowners a connection to nature through a series of meticulously crafted green spaces, light-filled units — some with private balconies — and a rooftop lounge area with space for for-purchase private cabanas.

“One of the unique aspects of this particular property — which we bought three years ago — is that it has presence on both 52nd Street and 51st Street,” said Howard Glatzer, president of Cadence Property Group. “It’s a true through-block lot in New York City, which makes it somewhat unique.” Typically, with a through-lot like this the developer

would build two separate buildings, one on 51st Street and another building on 52nd Street. Glatzer said Cadence Property wanted to avoid going down that road, and opted to create a different kind of condo experience.

“We pushed all of the mass to the 52nd Street side,” he said, “and we created a gated entrance on 51st Street to be a private garden that we call the Lane. And the Lane is this transition from the hustle and bustle of New York into a very private, calming, soothing, beautiful, natural garden lane that takes you to the front entrance of the building.”

To enter the Lane, residents will arrive through a private gate carved with a leaf and tree pattern, then step into a zen garden adorned with planters, trees and flowers. There is also a cushioned seating area, as well as benches along the walkway.

Honestly, the Lane seems like the perfect place to enjoy your Saturday morning coffee. It’s easy to picture yourself coming down from your luxury apartment, mug in one hand, phone in the other. It’s a 70-degree day, you are in

flip-flops, a T-shirt and comfy pants, sipping your brew surrounded by both city and nature. Perfection.

The residences consist of one-bedroom to three-bedroom simplex, duplex, triplex and penthouse homes ranging from $1.3 million to $4.3 million. Units feature oak floors, double-height windows, dedicated spaces for remote work and serene honed marble in the kitchens. Master bathrooms feature floor-to-ceiling glass showers, deep soaking tubs, and Italian Daino Reale marble.

Linden Lane also features amenities such as a rooftop terrace for grilling, dining and lounging, a coworking space that comes with a private zen room — perfect for decompressing after those meetings that could have been an email — and a multipurpose workout studio that features top-of-the-line equipment from brands such as Peloton and Rogue.

Linden Lane was completed in the first quarter of this year. Sales launched in January, and the first closings are expected to be complete in April or May.

June 3, 2026 | 25 Kent Ave, Brooklyn, NY | 8:00 AM - 12:30 PM

The forum will convene prominent real estate executives and borough business leaders to share a timely market outlook, detailing where Brooklyn real estate stands today, and where it’s heading next. From capital markets and investment strategies to leasing trends, housing supply and the rise of mixed-use innovation districts, experts will share the challenges and opportunities shaping Brooklyn in the years to come.

KEYNOTE

JUSTIN ELGHANAYAN Principal & President Rockrose

MYER President Downtown Brooklyn Partnership

OFER COHEN Co-Founder & Principal Ailanthus

RANDY PEERS President and CEO Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce

KATZ President Silverstein Capital Partners

ROTH Senior Vice President, Head of Office Global Holdings Management Group

Host

Partner Association Sponsors

NYC | 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM

ADI CHUGH Chairman & CE0

Capital

KARA MCSHANE Managing Director, EVP and Head of Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Wells Fargo

CHRIS LAWTON Managing Director, Head of Originations Nuveen Green Capital

NOAH HABERMAN Partner Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher MODERATOR

ROB VERRONE Principal Iron Hound

ERIC RAMIREZ Managing Director, Head of Eastern Region Originations ACORE CAPITAL

JOE LANZKRON Partner Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP MODERATOR

REBECCA BAYARD Managing Director, Real Estate Financing Group Goldman Sachs

SEAN REIMER Senior Managing Director, Capital Markets and Co-Head of Institutional Advisory Walker & Dunlop

MORRIS BETESH Founder & Managing Partner Arrow Real Estate Advisors

NICK SCRIBANI Vice Chairman, Global Debt & Structured Finance Newmark

LEO V. LEYVA Member of Cole Schotz & CoChair of the Litigation, Real Estate and Real Estate and Special Opportunities Departments Cole Schotz P.C. MODERATOR

BONNIE A. NEUMAN Partner & Global Head of Real Estate Practice Group Sidley Austin LLP MODERATOR

JUSTIN HOROWITZ Senior Managing Director Cooper Horowitz

YORICK STARR Managing Director & Investment Officer Invesco Real Estate

JAY NEVELOFF Partner, Chair of Real Estate, US HSF Kramer MODERATOR

DYLAN KANE Managing Director Colliers Capital Markets

MICHAEL TRACHTENBERG President Safehold Inc.

ARON M. ZUCKERMAN Partner Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP MODERATOR

MARKO ANGELO J. KAZANJIAN Senior Managing Director IPA Capital Markets, NYC & MiamiMarkets

PAUL VANDERSLICE Head of CMBS Originations BMO Capital Markets

CATHY CUNNINGHAM Executive Editor Commercial Observer EMCEE