Funding Finds Its Way To New Hotel In Big Apple

NEW YORK— Hotelier Simon Elias and developer Izak Senbahar have reportedly secured what has been described as Manhattan’s first hotel-construction financing since the terror attacks of Sept. 11. According to a story appearing in the pages of Crain’s New York Business, the pair wrested a $32-million first mortgage from Chicago-based Corus Bank, as well as an additional $11 million in mezzanine funding from financier Carl Icahn’s American Real Estate Partners. Both transactions were touted as three-year loans. As noted, the funding will go toward an already initiated $54-million project to construct The Alex, a 31-story glass-and-brick tower on East 45th Street here that will house 73 hotel rooms as well as 130 furnished apartments designed for stays of a month or more. Also slated to feature a 3,000-square-foot on-premises restaurant, the East Side property is expected to open by the summer of 2003. The land parcel itself was said to have been purchased by the developers for some $10.9 million— or about $85 per developable foot— from Homestead Village in late 1999. SOURCE: Crain’s New York Business