Principal Life goes coast-to-coast with $191m in financing

Principal Life Insurance Company has provided a combined $191 million on the World Diamond Tower in Manhattan and the Plaza 183 shopping center in the Los Angeles area.

The largest of the two financings was a $125 million financing on a 34-story tower and jewelry business hub in Midtown Manhattan, provided to an affiliate of the tower’s longtime owner Kenart Realties.

The financing consolidated an unpaid principal balance from a previous Prudential Insurance Company loan from 2007 with a new $65 million gap mortgage, city records show.

The Art Deco building on 580 Fifth Avenue at West 47th Street is home to several international jewelry companies and organizations, housing office suites and business centers for tenants including The Diamond Dealers Club, The Gemological Institute of America, Brinks, DGA Central Station and American Gemological Laboratories. Kenart Realties has owned 580 Fifth Avenue since August 1975, records show.

The life insurance lender also provided a 10-year, fixed-rate $66 million loan to an affiliate of CenterCal on the 360,875 sq ft open-air retail center in Cerritos, California, according to HFF, which arranged the financing.

The 11-building Plaza 183 center, at 11101-11263 183rd Street and 17970 Studebaker Road, is currently more than 97 percent leased. Extensive renovations on the property began in 2014, most of which was completed in 2015 and with additional improvements planned this year.

Earlier this month, the lender also provided a seven-year $78 million acquisition loan on the four-building Cottonwood Corporate Center office complex in Salt Lake City, Utah to a Hines-owned REIT. The lender’s parent company Principal Financial had $547.7 billion in assets under management at the end of the first quarter this year.