Dallas’ Comerica Bank Tower at risk of default
SMU Adjunct Business Professor Chuck Dannis talks about Comerica Bank Tower's risk of default.
By BRENDAN CASE and SHERYL JEAN
Staff Writers
A $180 million loan on Comerica Bank Tower in downtown Dallas has been transferred to special servicing because of a risk of default, according to Fitch Ratings.
That makes it one of the largest and highest-profile troubled assets in North Texas in years.
Metropolitan Real Estate Investors LLC bought the tower — the third-tallest in Dallas — in late 2006 for $216 million. Haim Revah, principal of Metropolitan Real Estate in Los Angeles, did not reply to interview requests Friday.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that the property is going into foreclosure, but it means something has gone awry,” said Chuck Dannis, who teaches real estate at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business.
“The special servicer is the one that starts working with the borrower on behalf of all the people that have bought into that mortgage-backed security,” Dannis said. “This is really very common in today’s market. Things that were done in 2004 through 2007 are being recast, if you will. Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t.”
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