Extell Finalizes $1.3B Construction Loan for Times Square Torch
Extell closed up to $1.3B in construction financing for The Torch, its 52-story Times Square hotel supertall, a live read on large-loan availability.
Extell Development has closed up to $1.3 billion in construction financing for The Torch, the 52-story, 1,029-foot hotel and entertainment tower it is building at 740 Eighth Avenue in Times Square, according to The Real Deal and Bisnow. The package pairs a senior construction loan with mezzanine debt to fund the roughly 825-room hotel through completion.
Why it matters
For a South Florida developer, the relevant number is not the tower’s height, it is the debt structure behind it. Extell, a firm with decades of Manhattan bank relationships and an active pipeline of large projects, still needed a senior lender group plus a separate mezzanine tranche to get a single-asset construction loan of this size closed. That is the current shape of large construction debt: sponsors need scale, a track record, and often a subordinate capital layer to get a project fully funded, whether the site sits in Midtown or Brickell. A smaller sponsor chasing a nine-figure construction loan today should expect the same layered structure at a smaller scale, and should plan for the time it takes a lender group to assemble.
The numbers
The financing totals up to $1.3 billion, combining a senior construction loan with mezzanine debt, per Bisnow’s reporting. The Torch will hold 825 hotel rooms across roughly 885,902 square feet in a 52-story tower, according to Department of City Planning filings cited by Bisnow. Dividing the financing by the room count, a figure neither outlet published, puts the debt at roughly $1.58 million per hotel key, a benchmark for how much construction debt a large Manhattan hotel project is carrying today. Extell projects $250 million to $270 million in annual stabilized net operating income once the property is complete and has said it does not plan to raise additional equity to finish construction.
What’s next
Extell expects the hotel to open in under three years, with the full building finished in about four years, putting completion near 2029 to 2030. For developers tracking national construction lending conditions, The Torch’s closing is a fresh data point on how much single-asset construction debt banks and mezzanine lenders will still commit to a well-capitalized sponsor in 2026.