The Noannet Group developing Cambria hotel near Boston

BOSTON, December 19, 2019 – JLL announced today that it has arranged $53.8 million in construction financing in the form of a participating mortgage for the development of Cambria Somerville-Cambridge, a new 163-room, full-service hotel in the infill Boston-area community of Somerville, Massachusetts.

JLL worked on behalf of The Noannet Group to arrange the financing with a debt fund advised by UBS Asset Management Real Estate & Private Markets.

The Cambria Somerville-Cambridge, which is part of the Choice Hotels brand family, is expected to open in the winter of 2020 and will feature a fitness room, 13,326 square feet of meeting space and 4,000 square feet of restaurant space run by a well-known local chef. With a modern design courtesy of renowned architects Cambridge 7 Associates (Four Seasons Boston and New Orleans; Williams Inn; Hanover Inn at Dartmouth) and interiors by noted interior designer Bill Rooney (Four Seasons Boston; Liberty Hotel; Peninsula New York and Chicago), the hotel will blend into the eclectic vibe of Somerville and neighboring Cambridge. Housed on a 1.1-acre site at 515 Somerville Avenue, Cambria Somerville-Cambridge’s location is equidistant between Harvard, Union and Porter Squares; half a mile from Harvard University; and proximate to Kendall Square, Tufts University and MIT. The property is along the future MBTA Green Line subway extension and close to area demand drivers, including the 300,000-square-foot Somernova innovation-focused business park; the 2.4 million-square-foot Union Square master-planned redevelopment that includes lab, office, multi-family and retail space; and the 4.5 million-square-foot, mixed-use Cambridge Crossing project.

The JLL Capital Markets debt placement team representing the developer was led by Senior Managing Director Riaz Cassum and Managing Director Anthony Cutone.

“The new Cambria Somerville-Cambridge is well positioned to take full advantage of all the positive developments taking place in the neighborhood, including transportation infrastructure and commercial developments already underway,” Cassum said. “The lending community immediately recognized the potential for a new hotel to take advantage of the increasing demand for hotel rooms going forward.”

JLL Capital Markets is a full-service global provider of capital solutions for real estate investors and occupiers. The firm's in-depth local market and global investor knowledge delivers the best-in-class solutions for clients — whether investment advisory, debt placement, equity placement or a recapitalization. The firm has more than 3,700 Capital Markets specialists worldwide with offices in nearly 50 countries.

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The Noannet Group was founded in 2011 with the mission of developing architecturally distinctive mixed-use, residential, and commercial buildings that enhance the communities in which they are located. Visit noannet.com for more information. 

With over 40 years of real estate investment advisory experience, the US real estate business of UBS Asset Management has approximately USD 30.9 billion under management on behalf of 773 clients. A multi-disciplined organization with staff of approximately 214, the business is headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut with regional offices in San Francisco and Dallas. Providing a wide array of real estate and farmland investment management services to clients, including pension funds, public employee retirement systems, foundations, offshore and private investors, the business focuses on core and value-added strategies ranging from acquiring existing, well leased investment properties to renovations and new development projects.  In addition to its US real estate business, UBS Asset Management, Real Estate & Private Markets manages real estate investments in Europe, Asia and Australia. In total, Real Estate manages USD 97.5 billion in real estate and real estate securities worldwide as of March 31, 2019.  In the US it operates through its legal entities, UBS Realty Investors LLC and UBS Farmland Investors LLC, registered investment advisors.  (data as of June 30, 2019 unless otherwise noted) ubsrealty.com