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In a sign that real estate lending has emerged from the ashes of the 1980s debacle, lenders lined up recently for a bite of the big Apple's biggest construction loan in nearly a decade.
Bank of New York Co. led and acted as agent for a $340 million loan to the Durst Organization to develop 4 Times Square-a 1.6-million-square-foot office development smack in the middle of what not so long ago was the most overbuilt market in the nation.
Excavation for the project has begun, and the building is scheduled for completion in 1999.
Bank of Nova Scotia, Dime Savings Bank of New York, and European American Bank are among eight foreign and domestic banks that have signed on to the syndicate.
Bankers were anxious to get in on the deal, saying it was important to get in at the beginning of a new cycle of real estate lending.
Although many banks were burned badly in the last cycle, observers said a select few got in early, and managed to score strong profits.
"This was the premier deal in New York City at this time and if we wanted the market to know that we were serious about real estate, this was the deal to be in," said Robin J. Cohen, a senior vice president who runs the real estate lending operation at EAB, a Uniondale, N.Y.-based subsidiary of ABN Amro Holding.
Indeed, a myriad of financing opportunities for commercial real estate have arisen, observers say.
Although office construction was virtually at a standstill in New York, such building has been under way for some time in a number of markets, notably in Denver, Atlanta, and Northern California.
"Given...