ICBC Refinances NoMad Office Tower for $24.4M

The U.S. arm of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has refinanced 148 Madison Avenue, a 71,871-square-foot office and retail tower in NoMad, with a $24.4 million loan to LMR Assets, the real estate investment arm of furniture importer Gourmet Home Products, according to Commercial Observer. The loan lands about 16 months after LMR paid $31,331,875 for the 16-story building in June 2024, per the ACRIS deed, in a Manhattan office market where new lending has stayed scarce.

Why it matters

A Chinese state bank writing a fresh loan on a small-sponsor Manhattan office building is itself the story in a market where most lenders have pulled back from office. LMR Assets is an arm of Gourmet Home Products, a furniture importer that occupies space in the building alongside the Brazilian luxury furniture brand Ornare, and the 2024 purchase was the sponsor’s first commercial real estate deal. ICBC underwriting a refinance for a first-time institutional owner, rather than a seasoned office landlord, says the bank is pricing this asset on the building and the rent roll, not on a long relationship with the borrower. Meridian Capital Group’s Benjamin Klugmann, who arranged the loan with Ariel Taieb, said in a statement that “ICBC recognized the quality of the real estate and the strength of the sponsorship.”

The numbers

The $24.4 million loan is 77.9 percent of the $31,331,875 the sponsor paid for 148 Madison Avenue on June 14, 2024, per ACRIS deed document 2024061100425001, CRFN 2024000152873, covering BBL 1-00861-0064 at Manhattan block 861, lot 64. Commercial Observer’s reported figures of roughly $24.4 million and “$31.3 million” match the exact recorded deed amount within rounding. The building, built around 1917 between East 31st and East 32nd Streets, holds 15 office spaces and one retail space, and LMR has made capital improvements since taking title. The new mortgage had not yet posted to ACRIS’s public index as of this writing, so the loan terms beyond the amount come from Commercial Observer’s reporting and Meridian’s statement, not from a recorded mortgage document.

What’s next

We will check ACRIS again once the mortgage document is indexed to confirm the recorded loan amount, the lender’s exact legal name, and any other collateral tied to the loan, and will update this record if the recorded figure differs from what is reported here. For more on where capital is moving across the market, see our earlier coverage of a Long Island City development deal or the full New York market coverage.