CBD office loans.
The basics
Downtown towers are the most scrutinized property type in commercial real estate right now. Capital is available for the right buildings, and it is genuinely selective about which ones.
Office lending has tightened, but the right buildings still get funded. We know which lenders are active and on what terms. Nowhere is that distinction sharper than in the central business district, where two towers on the same street can get completely different answers from the capital markets.
The shift in how companies use space landed hardest downtown. Large floor plates, long commutes, and older building stock absorbed most of the impact, while tenants that stayed downtown largely moved up in quality. The result is a market that has separated rather than declined. Well-located, amenitized buildings continue to lease. Older buildings competing only on price have a harder story.
Lenders read that separation building by building. They are not underwriting downtown office as a category. They are underwriting your rent roll, your rollover schedule, your capital plan, and your basis.
Rollover is the number that moves the deal
On a large tower, the rent roll is a calendar. Lenders lay every lease expiration against the loan term and ask what the building looks like at each point along the way.
Concentration is what worries them. A single tenant occupying a large share of the building, with an expiration inside the loan term, puts most of the outcome on one renewal decision. Spread across many tenants with staggered dates, the same square footage is a much calmer file. If your rollover is lumpy, it is better to lead with it and let us take the file to lenders who structure around rollover rather than lenders who decline it.
Leasing costs are part of the underwriting
Signing a downtown lease costs real money. Improvement allowances on office space downtown are substantial, free rent is standard, and commissions come off the top. A lender is not underwriting the rent in your proposal, they are underwriting the cash that reaches you after all of that is funded.
That is why the question of who pays for leasing keeps coming up in these files. Where a business plan depends on leasing vacant floors, lenders want to see the source of those dollars identified, whether that is a reserve, a future funding facility, or sponsor equity. Plans without a funded leasing budget do not get far.
Where the capital is coming from
The lender mix in this asset class has changed. Life insurance companies remain active on the best-located, best-occupied assets. CMBS writes on office where the cash flow story is clean. Banks are lending, often to sponsors they already know. And private capital and family funds have taken a larger share of transitional business plans, particularly where a building needs time and money before it can support conventional debt.
We shop across all of it and tell you plainly which of those doors is open for your building. If the answer is that the market will not support what you are hoping for, we would rather say so early than spend two months proving it. No obligation.
What lenders look at.
The things that move a central business district (cbd) file from "maybe" to a real quote.
Rent roll depth and rollover schedule
Lenders map every expiration across the loan term before they price anything. A tower with staggered maturities and no single dominant tenant reads very differently than one with a third of its space rolling in the same year.
Where the building sits in its market
Tenants have consolidated into better buildings. Newer, amenitized, well-located towers have held occupancy while older stock has not. Lenders are underwriting that separation directly rather than treating downtown as one market.
Capital already spent and still required
Lobby, elevator, mechanical, and floor renovations are large numbers on a tower. Lenders want to know what has been done, what is due, and who is funding it.
Leasing costs embedded in the plan
Downtown leasing runs on substantial improvement allowances, free rent, and commissions. Those costs sit between signed leases and actual cash flow, and lenders underwrite them explicitly.
Sponsor strength and reserves
On large office, lenders look hard at who is behind the deal and what liquidity stands behind the leasing plan. This is one of the few property types where sponsorship regularly decides the outcome.
How these deals are usually structured.
Every lender prices differently and every file is its own case. Treat this as the shape of a typical central business district (cbd) deal, not a quote.
- Loan amount
- Generally $500,000 and up, though CBD assets typically sit well above that.
- Common capital sources
- Life insurance companies, CMBS, banks, private money, and family funds. The mix leans more toward private and institutional capital than it did a few years ago.
- Typical purposes
- Refinance, acquisition at repriced basis, recapitalization, and bridge capital through a leasing or repositioning plan.
- Rate structure
- Fixed and floating both exist. Transitional business plans more often carry floating structures.
- Timeline
- A soft LOI quote often within 24 to 48 hours once your scenario matches a lender's guidelines, and a hard LOI in one to two weeks.
Terms depend on the property, the sponsor, and the lender. Nothing here is a commitment to lend.
Other office we finance.
Different property, same process.
Or see everything under office.
Loan types we place on central business district (cbd).
Central business district (CBD) questions.
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Yes, selectively. The pool is smaller than it was and it skews toward private capital, life companies, and banks with an existing relationship or a specific appetite. The honest answer is that quality and basis matter more than they used to, and we will tell you where your building falls.
Usually bridge or private capital carrying the property through a leasing plan, with permanent debt taking it out once occupancy and income support it. Lenders in that space will want to see the plan, the leasing costs, and where the money for those costs comes from.
Come to us early, ideally many months out. Maturing office loans are the most common file we see in this category. Options can include a new lender at a different basis, a structure with a paydown, or private capital while you execute a plan. Time is the resource that helps most.
Both, depending on the term. A large tenant with long remaining term stabilizes the file. The same tenant with a near-term expiration concentrates the risk, and lenders will size the loan around what happens if that space comes back.
Conversions are getting done where the floor plate, window line, plumbing, and zoning cooperate, and they are construction deals rather than office deals. If you are considering it, bring us the feasibility work, because the answer depends almost entirely on the building.
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