The amazing thing to me about Boston's
John Hancock Tower is that 34 years after it was built
the new owners had a $1.3 billion mortgage on it.
But that's exactly what happened at the 62-story building, now under its fourth owner in six years. In January, an aggressive young wheeler-dealer defaulted on a portion of the building's $1.3 billion mortgage just 24 months after buying it. In March, two firms that had purchased chunks of the tower's second mortgage for pennies on the dollar assumed control, essentially rendering up to $400 million of debt worthless. The Hancock's market value is now about $700 million—half what it appraised for less than two years ago.
It's undeniably a beautiful building and unlike
other modern architectural highlights in Boston it blends in quite nicely with this historic downtown. But the lenders need to have their heads examined.
The amazing thing to me about Boston's John Hancock Tower is that 34 years after it was built the new owners had a $1.3 billion mortgage on it.
2 comments:
Developers refi cash out as many nonrecourse millions as they possibly can. It's just part of the job.
Boston was one of the most disappointingly hideous places I visited in my travel days. I guess I'd been led to believe it was chock full of old, historic buildings that harken back to the Revolution, and so there were some -- surrounded by hideousness. An ugly city it was indeed, moreso because of my misguided expectations.
(Yes, I've lived in other ugly cites, but they pretty much acknowledged they were ugly from the start. Uh, Dallas?)
Post a Comment