A new buyer has emerged for the nearly $1 billion in defaulted properties for the city’s biggest residential landlord Veritas Investments, and its Brookfield Properties, a partner that just walked away from the Westfield Centre shopping mall.
It was pretty stunning news in the residential real estate sector last May, when we learned that the the city’s biggest landlord Veritas Investments was in default on nearly $1 billion in delinquent loans on its properties, and could be forced to sell off around 75 apartment buildings, with more than 2,100 units, which represents between a quarter and a third of Veritas’s overall SF portfolio. (And it is significant to some that Veritas is also the landlord of the currently defunct Club Deluxe in the Haight, with whom Veritas has been unwilling or unable to make an arrangement.)
The Chronicle reported in August that a potential buyer for those distressed properties had emerged in Ballast Investments, another large SF landlord. But today we have a new wrinkle, as the Chronicle now reports that Brookfield Properties may be partnering with Ballast on the purchase. This is significant, and perhaps counterintuitive, as Brookfield is one of the partners who’s surrendering the Westfield Centre mall property to its lenders, again over debt issues.
The deal has not closed, and there has been no public announcement. Neither Ballast nor Brookfield responded to the Chronicle's request for comment, and the Chron’s report is sourced on “four people tracking the potential deal” who “weren’t authorized to speak publicly.”
It’s an interesting turn for Brookfield, who’ve currently halted their $2 billion Pier 70 redevelopment project at the former Potrero Power Plant, and whose 415 Natoma project that’s part of the huge 5M development in SoMa has, per the Chronicle, a 97% vacancy rate.
Brookfield is also the developer behind the proposed housing village to be created in the Stonestown Galleria parking lot, though that mall is also facing debt issues — and that mixed-use development is still in early planning stages.
This is not the end for Veritas, as they still hold more than half of their overall San Francisco residential portfolio.
Related: Mega-Landlord Veritas Investments In Default on Loans, Could Lose a Third of Its Buildings [SFist]
Image: Veritas via Facebook
