Tishman Speyer Properties LP and BlackRock Inc. were expected to miss a payment Friday on debt from their $5.4 billion purchase of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, said New York City Councilman Daniel Garodnick.
Garodnick, a resident of the 80-acre apartment complex, said Rob Speyer, Tishman Speyer's co-chief executive, told him Thursday that the payment would not be made.
"He said that they were going to miss a payment and that would begin the process of a default," Garodnick said in an interview.
Missing the payment puts Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village on course to become the second-largest default of a commercial mortgage-backed security after the $4.1 billion default by Extended Stay America Inc. hotels last year, according to Fitch Inc. Tishman Speyer and BlackRock are scheduled to make monthly debt payments of $16.1 million by the eighth day of each month, according to Adam Fox, senior director at Fitch.
Bud Perrone, a spokesman for Tishman Speyer, said the company had no comment.
Tishman Speyer and BlackRock bought the apartment complex — Manhattan's biggest — in 2006 with plans to raise rents, evict illegal occupants and upgrade the complex. Those plans were challenged by a recession, slackening demand for rentals and a legal victory for tenants who claimed some rent increases were illegal.
The $3 billion in debt used to buy the property was bundled with other commercial mortgages and sold as bonds.
