$6.5M Land Bridge to Construction: 127 Acres of Entitled Ocean-View Land
Carlsbad, CA — A legacy landowning family had spent years waiting on a city road-expansion approval that stood between their entitled acreage and a construction start. Helvetica funded a $6,500,000 first mortgage at 18% LTV against $37M of appraised value — the fourth Helvetica loan on the project — refinancing the prior bridge and funding site work ahead of a $32M construction loan.
The Borrower's Problem
The ownership entity — a family LLC holding land their family had owned for more than 150 years — controlled two adjacent parcels with real entitlements in hand: an approved tentative subdivision map for forty-two 20,000 SF single-family lots on 119.86 acres, and an approved site development plan for a 127-unit apartment community on the adjoining 7.49 acres.
What they didn't control was the calendar. The project's gating item was the city's final approval of a boulevard extension and the infrastructure behind it — a municipal timeline no borrower can accelerate. Meanwhile an existing $4.0M bridge was maturing and the smaller multifamily parcel still needed site-development capital before a construction lender would fund. Raw land produces no income, and banks do not lend on pre-infrastructure land, so conventional refinancing was not an option. Selling into the delay would have meant giving up generational land at a fraction of its entitled value.
The Helvetica Solution
Helvetica had already financed this project three times over six years and knew the collateral, the entitlements, and the borrower's pay history. This loan refinanced the maturing $4.0M bridge and provided cash-out for continued site development — a $6,500,000 senior first mortgage at just 18% of the $37M appraised value, structured interest-only over 12 months with two six-month extension options for a 24-month total runway.
The very low leverage kept the loan conservative against non-income-producing land while giving the family enough capital and enough time to carry the project to the point where a $32,000,000 construction loan for the 127-unit apartment building could take Helvetica out.
Benefit to the Borrower
- Maturing $4.0M bridge retired without selling generational land
- Cash-out funded the site work a construction lender required first
- Entitled land value recognized where banks would not lend at all
- Interest-only payments on non-income-producing collateral
- Up to 24 months of runway to clear the city approval bottleneck
- Repeat-borrower relationship: fourth loan on the same project in six years
- All of the development upside retained by the family entity
Deal Highlights
- 127.35 acres across two contiguous, entitled parcels
- Approved tentative map for forty-two 20,000 SF ocean-view home lots
- Approved site development plan for a 127-unit apartment community
- $37M+ of appraised value supporting an 18% LTV first mortgage
- Exit via a $32M multifamily construction loan
Entitled land waiting on approvals?
Helvetica funds land, predevelopment and bridge loans from $300K–$10M+ on investment and business-purpose real estate, typically closing in 3–10 days following receipt of all requested documentation.
