PIMCO's Columbia extends $1.8B office loan on 650 California to 2028

Columbia Property Trust, the office landlord controlled by PIMCO, has modified roughly $1.8 billion of debt backing a seven-building office portfolio and pushed the maturity out to July 2028, closing a workout that ran through two defaults and a foreclosure action that was ultimately canceled. For anyone pricing office debt right now, this is the reference deal.

Why it matters

This is the largest office default of the post-2020 cycle, and it did not end in a handover of the keys. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, which originated the loan in late 2021, twice chose to restructure rather than take the assets, and they canceled foreclosure filings against the two San Francisco towers to get there. That tells developers and sponsors two things. First, lenders holding large, geographically diversified office pools still prefer time to ownership, which means the maturity wall keeps getting pushed rather than cleared. Second, the price discovery happens asset by asset, not pool by pool: Columbia resolved 201 California by selling it, and left the rest inside the loan. A sponsor negotiating an office extension in 2026 should expect the same shape, a long extension in exchange for surrendering the weakest collateral. What is notable is what the reporting does not show: no paydown or principal reduction was disclosed as part of the June agreement.

The numbers

The June 2026 agreement extends the debt to July 2028. The loan started at about $1.7 billion against seven buildings, two in San Francisco including 650 California Street, three in Manhattan, one in Boston and one in Jersey City. Columbia first defaulted in early 2023. A May 2024 modification pushed maturity to July 2025 with a six-month option, cut the rate on $485 million of subordinate A-notes to near zero, took $160 million of B-notes to zero, and deferred payments on $125 million of mezzanine debt. Columbia neither exercised the option nor repaid, and lenders issued a notice of default on Dec. 17, 2025, by which point the balance had grown to more than $1.9 billion. The portfolio was appraised at roughly $1.3 billion, down from nearly $2.3 billion in October 2021. Columbia sold 201 California Street to Ridge Capital Investors for $75 million under a friendly foreclosure agreement.

What’s next

Watch whether July 2028 is a resolution or another waypoint, since the last extension bought 14 months and failed. The tell will be leasing at 650 California, which is running near 80 percent occupancy in a market with roughly 30 percent vacancy. If that holds, the extension works. More at the San Francisco hub.