Keystone Property Group, a real estate developer, manager, and investor of office and industrial properties, announced this week that it has completed a $53.5 millionrefinancing for one of its properties in the Pittsburgh submarket with what the company says is the first multi-borrower commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) deal in nearly two years.

With the entire commercial real estate industry concerned about the ability to obtain financing, Keystone says this loan may signify that lending has begun to return to the market.

Several single-borrower CMBS offerings have emerged in recent months from the frozen secondary market, but according to Keystone, the loan for its Class A business campus, Keystone Summit Corporate Park, is the first in the country to be originated and closed under the second generation of CMBS financing for a multi-borrower securitization. The Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania-based company said the new loan allowed it to cash out two-thirds of the property’s equity.

Keystone purchased the property in September 2008 when the asset was less than 75 percent leased. The company subsequently initiated a targeted leasing and $2 million capital improvement program at the property, signing more than 345,000 square feet of new leases and raising the property’s net operating income from $1.7 million to $6.2 million, even as the downturn in the commercial sector was taking hold.

The five-building corporate park is now 100 percent leased, the company said, at a time when other property owners are struggling with debilitating vacancy rates.

“Having acquired an underperforming asset in 2008, we recognized the inherent value of Keystone Summit Corporate Park … which allowed us to execute a successful capital improvement program to bring this business campus to Class A status,” said Bill Glazer, founder and president of Keystone Property Group. “Our leasing team did an outstanding job outperforming the local leasing market in a challenging marketplace.”

Capital advisory firm Ackman-Ziff represented Keystone Property Group during the loan negotiation to recapitalize the asset.

“There was heavy competition to finance this property from a range of capital sources, notably pension funds, insurance companies, private equity funds, and domestic and foreign banks,” stated Matthew Pestronk, managing director of Ackman-Ziff. “The capital structure we were able to obtain was similar to what was available in the market prior to the credit crisis, the actual closing of which is concrete evidence of a dramatic improvement in the availability of capital in the marketplace. We candidly believe that the economics of this deal were the most aggressive that we have seen since 2007.”