Weil wind-down clouds refinancing of $2.3 billion GM Building loan

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is winding down while it is still the largest tenant in the General Motors Building, leaving lenders on the Fifth Avenue tower's $2.3 billion loan with a refinancing problem, a CRED iQ analysis published Monday found.

Weil is not the only law firm holding up office debt. By CRED iQ's count, Top 100 firms rank among the five biggest tenants in 99 office buildings, and those buildings secure $35.4 billion of commercial mortgage-backed securities debt spread over 192 deals. A law firm is the biggest single tenant in 34 of the deals, which together carry $15.9 billion.

Those 69 firms fill 16.5 million square feet, and New York accounts for 55 percent of the debt. Loans on 27 of the buildings, totaling $10.5 billion, come due by the end of 2027, and the GM Building is one of them.

Weil has been in the GM Building since the tower opened in 1968. It leases 447,075 square feet through August 2034, and it paid 19.4 percent of the building's gross rent when the loan was securitized in 2017. That debt is split across BXP 2017-GM and 10 conduit deals and matures in June 2027.

The space covers roughly one-quarter of the 50-story tower's offices and houses 584 professionals, Connect CRE reported Oct. 30. Kroll Bond Rating Agency put Weil's share of the rent roll at 17.5% and said its rent of $121 a square foot is not above market, so BXP should be able to re-lease some or all of the space. BXP President Doug Linde told analysts the firm's current rent sits well below what the landlord sees as the market rate.

The firm's reach extends beyond Manhattan. Weil also ranks among the top tenants at the Crescent in Dallas, refinanced in March. Its early renewal there sets rent at $54 a square foot, triple net, from August 2028 to 2039, or 67 percent above the $32.21 it pays now.

At many trophy towers, newer law firm leases run past the loans. Paul Weiss holds 765,956 square feet at 1345 Avenue of the Americas until 2047, two decades beyond that loan's maturity. The opposite is true in 24 buildings with $5.8 billion of debt, where a Top 100 firm's lease ends first. At 1211 Avenue of the Americas, Ropes & Gray's 345,413 square feet expire in March 2027, 17 months ahead of a $1.04 billion loan.

Buildings anchored by law firms default less often. Nineteen of the loans, carrying $3.2 billion, sit with special servicers, equal to 9 percent of the balance, compared with 15.8 percent for all office loans in commercial mortgage bonds.

When a firm does leave, the gap is large. Covington & Burling's 197,450 square feet at the New York Times Building sit vacant, and a $635 million loan on the property defaulted at its December 2025 maturity.

Liam Mulcahy, a senior product manager at CRED iQ who wrote the analysis, said the bigger danger for lenders is concentration rather than unpaid rent. He wrote that lenders "will be asking whether the anchor firm is staying, moving to a new tower or, like Weil, going away" as those loans come due. For the GM Building, that answer is needed before June 2027.