Kushner Cos. Faces Squeeze in Brooklyn Over WeWork, Coronavirus
- Project partnership owes $300 million to South Korean insurers
- Company says Dumbo Heights site fully leased, ‘huge success’
Kushner Cos., the real estate firm owned by members of Jared Kushner’s family, is staring down another crisis.
The firm’s partnership in four Brooklyn office buildings barely covered debt payments last year. Now a global recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic is threatening to disrupt a financial high-wire act: balancing an ailing major tenant, WeWork, and $300 million of loans issued in 2018 by South Korean insurers.
A deteriorating situation at the property, known as Dumbo Heights, would add to the family’s business woes. Last month, Kushner Cos. missed a mortgage payment at another property, a tourism-focused one in Manhattan’s Times Square with $285 million of debt issued by Deutsche Bank AG. That project has been foundering for two years. Financing arrangements at both properties allowed little wiggle room for tenants unable to pay rent.