KeyCorp Eyes More Real Estate Lending
By RAJIV VYAS
Cleveland-based KeyCorp has stepped up its real estate banking in Irvine and said it expects to do $150 million in loans this year.
Key Commercial Real Estate’s Irvine office opened in 2000 as an offshoot of its Century City branch. The Orange County branch started in temporary space and moved to 2 Park Plaza earlier this year. The operation has grown from four people to 12.
Next year, Key Commercial sees loan originations in Irvine hitting $200 million and $250 million by 2004, said David Koepf, senior vice president and district manager who joined Key in February to head up the Irvine office.
“Normally an average office does about $250 million in new loans,” Koepf said. “We expect to get there in three years.”
Key Commercial’s Irvine office, which also serves San Diego, specializes in construction lending from $5 million to $100 million. It also does bridge loans, equity financing and commercial mortgages. The company finances all types of commercial and residential projects, except hotels, Koepf said.
“In one way shape or form if it touches real estate,excluding hotel property,we have the ability of providing financing,” he said.
But as Key Commercial grows here, it’s likely to bump up against more competition, such as the local arm of Detroit-based Comerica Inc.
Along with Irvine and Culver City, Key Commercial also has a San Francisco office. In the next five years, Key’s loan origination in California could top $1 billion, up from about $600 million in 2001, Keopf said.
“Hopefully we can get there in three years,” he said.
The San Francisco office, which opened in 1997, and Culver City, which started in 1999, both did around $300 million in loans last year, according to the bank.
“We feel that we are just scratching the surface in California,” said David Reavis, a Key Commerical spokesman. “Southern California is definitely a priority market.”
The Irvine office opened after OC builders and other clients wound up being the bulk of the business at the Culver City office, Koepf said.
