Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo refinance Essex Crossing building

By: Steve C.

The Lower East Side juggernaut known as Essex Crossing keeps rolling along Delancey Street.

Joint-venture development partners Delancey Street Associates closed Monday on two major refinancings of The Rollins, a new apartment and retail building at 145 Clinton St. that’s named for jazz giant Sonny Rollins, who once lived at the address.

The refinancing consists of a $93 million loan from Wells Fargo for the 16-story tower’s residential portion and a $63 million loan through Goldman Sachs’ commercial mortgage-backed securities group for its retail portion.

Delancey Street Associates is composed of BFC Partners, L+M Development Partners, Taconic Investment Partners, the Prusik Group and Goldman Sachs’ urban investment group.

Meanwhile, the developers signed a 4,000-square-foot retail lease for a Spectrum electronics showroom and store at The Rollins. Only 10,500 square feet of the building’s 70,000 square feet remain available. Most of the space is already occupied by the largest Trader Joe’s on the East Coast and by Target, both of which opened recently.

The Rollins has 211 apartments including 107 market-rate units that are mostly occupied.

Viewed from the north side of Delancey Street, the project — between Ludlow Street and the Williamsburg Bridge entrance but mostly east of Essex Street — looks far from complete.

But that’s only because two large buildings in the center, 180 Broome St. (rental apartments, offices and stores) and 202 Broome (luxury condos, offices and stores), are still under construction. Podium work has been done at 180 and the foundation dug at 202. Both will be done by 2020.

About 90 percent of the 1.9 million-square-foot, mixed-use complex is either open or under construction. Seven of nine buildings are finished or are rising along the south side of Delancey Street near the Williamsburg Bridge entrance.

BFC principal Don Capoccia, citing “momentum” at the complex, noted that many of its major public use components will open by next spring — a park, a Regal multiplex cinema complex, The Gutter bowling alley, the 700-foot-long Market Line underground food hall and a relocated Essex Street Market.

At another Essex Crossing site, 242 Broome St., 75 percent of 55 luxury condos are already sold. The building will also be home next year to the International Center of Photography. Separately, leasing will begin soon for market-rate units at 125 Delancey St., aka The Essex.

Most of the Essex Crossing land had consisted of empty lots since 1967. Old buildings were razed to make room for new apartment buildings that never came — thanks to maneuvering by then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who feared that an influx of new residents would dilute his voting constituency.