Dranoff pays off DRPA loan for Camden building

The Victor Lofts - a 341-unit, luxury apartment building on Camden's waterfront. AKIRA SUWA / Staff

Developer Dranoff Properties has repaid a $3 million loan, with $1.28 million in interest, on the Victor Lofts luxury apartment building on the Camden Waterfront, the Delaware River Port Authority said Monday.

The DRPA loaned Dranoff the money in 2003 to convert the old Radio Corp. of America "Nipper" Building into 341 apartments.

The building was listed for sale last fall, but president Carl Dranoff said Monday that his company may keep it.

"We're considering our options to retain, refinance or sell it," he said. "It's all still under consideration."

The $3 million loan was part of the DRPA's controversial "economic development" spending program, which funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into real estate, sports stadiums, museums and other projects. The DRPA stopped making those grants and loans in 2011.

The U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia has been investigating the DRPA's economic-development spending for nearly two years.

The Victor loan was to be interest-free until 2009, when Dranoff was supposed to start repaying the loan in monthly installments.

But the agreement with the DRPA stated that Dranoff's obligation to make payments was limited to the Victor's "available cash flow," and Dranoff had not made any payments.

The repayment of $4.28 million announced Monday represents interest of about 3.9 percent a year over the 11 years.

"The loan was paid off on time with all interest in accordance with the loan documents," Dranoff said.

The money will be be placed in the DRPA's general fund, DRPA chief financial officer James White said.

In a related development, the DRPA said Monday that a $10 million loan guarantee made by the DRPA to the New Jersey Economic Development Authority in 2001, has been discharged.

That guarantee was part of a financial incentive package to retain L-3 Communications in Camden.

In December, the development authority sold the building previously occupied by L-3 to a private developer, allowing the DRPA to close the loan guarantee.

"Each of these transactions represents a significant step toward permanently concluding the authority's involvement in ecnomic development," said John Hanson, chief executive of the DRPA. "Our sole focus is on our core mission - stewardship of important transportation services and facilities - namely our bridges and PATCO."

The six-story Victor Lofts structure (not including its tower) is part of what little remains of a 58-acre industrial complex.

The building began as the headquarters of Eldridge B. Johnson's Victor Talking Machine Co. in 1901. The company was sold to RCA in 1929, then morphed into a General Electric aerospace division in 1986.

Then the building became the Victor, the commercial-and-residential venture owned by Dranoff Properties, in 2003.

More environmental cleanup is required at the other former RCA building awaiting redevelopment, the 60,000-square-foot Building 8, Dranoff said.

No work will be done until additional financing is available, he said.

Source: Philly.com