A 2016 CMBS loan hit its maturity date, and now the trust wants the property sold
A commercial mortgage trust wants a federal court to force the sale of a New Jersey office park, saying the owner never paid off a $130 million loan.
The suit was filed August 12 in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. Bringing it is U.S. Bank National Association, acting as trustee for a 2016 Morgan Stanley Bank of America Merrill Lynch commercial mortgage trust, with Greystone Servicing Company handling the loan. On the other side is Lenox Drive Office Park LLC, a Delaware company that owns a group of office buildings on Lenox Drive in Mercer County, New Jersey.
The backstory, according to the filing, runs like this. In December 2015, the original lender, Morgan Stanley Bank, N.A., wrote a $130 million loan to the borrower. The debt was split across several promissory notes, later modified, and secured by a mortgage on the office park along with cash-management and deposit-control agreements and UCC filings covering rents, fixtures, and more. The trust says it now holds the whole package.
What tipped it into court was the calendar. The filing says the loan carried a stated maturity date of January 1, 2026, and that the borrower failed to make the payment due by that date. That, the trust claims, put it in default.
Then there is the bill. As of July 1, 2026, the trust says the borrower owes $141,767,219.75 across the notes. According to the filing, that covers principal still outstanding, interest at both the note rate and the steeper default rate, late fees, and a run of servicing charges - liquidation fees, special servicing fees, and a property protection advance among them. Interest keeps climbing by the day until the property sells, the filing says, with several reserve balances credited back against the total.
The trust is asking for two things that should catch the eye of anyone tracking office loans. It wants the court to foreclose and order the property sold. And it wants a receiver appointed to run the office park while the case moves - and to handle the foreclosure sale.
One point for servicing teams: the filing states that New Jersey's Fair Foreclosure Act notice doesn't apply, because this is commercial property, not a home. It's the sort of line that marks the difference between a commercial workout and a residential one.
For mortgage and commercial-real-estate finance professionals, the case reads as one more marker in a long stretch of office-sector strain - a large, seasoned CMBS loan hitting its maturity wall and heading into foreclosure and receivership.
These are allegations. No court has ruled on any of the claims.
