Brookfield Walks Away From the Beaudry, California's Tallest Apartment Tower, Rather Than Refinance

The $600 million downtown L.A. high-rise is about 95% leased, but refinancing its roughly $360 million loan would have cost tens of millions more. The lender is now trying to sell the debt.

By Herald Staff · Nov. 4, 2026, 11:30 AM ET

A slender glass apartment tower with stacked balconies rises between darker office high-rises along an empty downtown Los Angeles boulevard lined with palm trees, lit by an amber sunset with distant skyscrapers in the haze. — Downtown L.A. added more than 10,000 apartments from 2017 to 2021, but office vacancy there is still about double its 2019 level.

Brookfield is walking away from the Beaudry, the 64-story apartment tower it opened in downtown Los Angeles in April 2023, rather than put more money into refinancing it, according to a citybiz summary of a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday. The building cost about $600 million and carries a loan of roughly $360 million. Refinancing that debt at today's interest rates would have taken tens of millions of dollars in additional money, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.

The lender, Bridge Investment Group, which is owned by Apollo, is now trying to sell the loan, CRE Daily reported.

A Full Building That Still Doesn't Pencil Out

What makes the exit striking is that the Beaudry is not empty. The 785-unit tower is about 95% occupied, with asking rents averaging about $4,200 a month, according to CoStar figures cited by the Journal. Those rents are above the wider downtown market, citybiz noted, but below what Brookfield expected when it built the tower, and the company has offered weeks of free rent to sign tenants.

Real estate brokers told the Journal that rising debt costs have effectively wiped out Brookfield's equity in the building. Newmark vice chairman Dean Zander told the paper the tower was meant to be a hit, but that the debt market "got away," as CRE Daily put it.

In other words, the building can fill its apartments and still not earn enough to support a loan taken out when borrowing was far cheaper.

The Tallest Apartment Tower in the State

The Beaudry rises about 695 feet at 960 W. 7th St., next to the FIGat7th shopping mall. When it opened it was the first downtown high-rise to debut since the start of the pandemic, Urbanize LA reported in 2023, and it became the tallest residential tower in Los Angeles and in California, according to its Wikipedia entry. It is named for Prudent Beaudry, a 19th-century Los Angeles mayor.

Designed by Marmol Radziner with LARGE Architecture, the tower sits on a lot that stayed vacant for decades. It was the last piece of a block-wide plan first drawn up by the late developer Robert Maguire in the 1980s, which also produced the 777 Tower, the EY Center and the mall, Urbanize LA reported. Maguire had planned more offices there as recently as 2006.

The building was pitched at downtown professionals, with a saltwater pool, a golf simulator and a pet spa among its amenities. Its general contractor, Webcor, listed a ballet studio, a rooftop deck and an 814-stall garage as well. Studio rents started around $2,480 a month at opening, and upper-floor units ran far higher.

Downtown's Uneven Recovery

A Brookfield spokeswoman told the Journal the decision reflects persistent challenges downtown, where office vacancy remains about double its 2019 level and apartment rents have only recently climbed back to pre-pandemic levels. Remote work has cut into the idea of living steps from the office, citybiz noted.

Brookfield has also defaulted on loans tied to several nearby commercial properties held in the same investment fund as the Beaudry, and that fund is nearing the end of its holding period, according to the Journal's reporting.

Downtown added more than 10,000 apartments from 2017 to 2021, the most of any U.S. downtown, CRE Daily reported, citing RentCafe. The Beaudry is not the only troubled downtown tower: the unfinished Oceanwide Plaza towers, known for their graffiti, were approved by a court for sale for about $517 million, plus roughly $800 million more needed to finish them, according to CRE Daily.

A Wider Problem for Landlords

The squeeze is not unique to Los Angeles. Apartment owners face about $1.8 trillion in debt coming due over the next decade, with nearly half due by 2028, and many are refinancing at more than double their original borrowing costs, CRE Daily reported. A Morgan Stanley report cited by the Journal found that delinquencies on apartment loans packaged into commercial mortgage-backed securities rose from 1% in October 2023 to 7.1% this year, the sharpest increase of any major property type.

Brookfield says it is still buying. In 2024 it picked up a discounted loan portfolio tied to 2,149 San Francisco apartments after the previous owner defaulted, and it told the Journal it expects more chances to buy high-quality properties as higher rates push other owners to sell.

The reports did not say what the change in ownership could mean for the tower's residents. That will likely depend on who ends up buying the loan.

Original reporting by The Los Angeles Herald, drawing on The Wall Street Journal as summarized by citybiz and CRE Daily, and on Urbanize LA and Webcor, as linked above.