Lendlease and L+M Development Partners have closed on a $250 million construction loan from Barings for 100 Claremont Ave., a mixed-use, 42-story academic and residential tower in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. JLL Senior Managing Director Christopher Peck and Managing Director Scott Aiese arranged the transaction.
The partners will break ground as soon as possible, likely next month, on the 354,000-square-foot building at the site of the Union Theological Seminary, a representative of the companies confirmed to Multi-Housing News. Completion is projected for the spring of 2023.
Robert A.M. Stern Architects designed the building, which forms part of a broader revitalization of the seminary campus stretching between West 120th and West 122nd Streets. The project will feature 54,000 square feet of new classrooms, academic offices and apartments for faculty, along with about 165 condo units ranging in size from one to four bedrooms.
The developers are targeting LEED Gold Certification and V2 of the WELL Building Standard for the new building, which sits near the Columbia University campus and the Hudson River.
GIVING BACK
Lendlease and L+M purchased air rights for the project from Union Theological Seminary in 2018. The developers also pledged to invest $5 million in the local community as part of its partnership with the institution. Of those funds, $1.1 million over five years that will go to a new fund at the New York Community Trust called the Morningside Heights Community Fund and to P.A.’L.A.N.T.E, a homelessness-focused nonprofit. The remaining $3.9 million will be released upon the completion of the project, according to a statement.
In February, L+M opened Beach Green Dunes II, a 127-unit fully affordable community in Far Rockway, N.Y., together with its public and private partners.
