【ARCFE News】 iCross Capital Recognized Among Top Construction Lenders In NYC
- ARCFE U.S.
- 5 hours ago
- 7 min read
A 2025 report by PincusCo ranked iCross Capital, ARCFE’s parent company, 35th out of 105 lending institutions in NYC, highlighting the firm’s growing presence and expertise in one of the most competitive and sophisticated real estate markets in the world.
The report noted that NYC construction lending activity surged in 2025, with lenders providing over $23.3B across 344 deals, reflecting strong demand for experienced capital partners capable of navigating complex development and financing environments. The market was characterized by large-scale ground-up developments, rehabilitation projects, and increasingly sophisticated financing structures, all requiring deep underwriting discipline and localized market expertise.
In real estate investing, attention is often placed on factors such as location, developer reputation, project renderings, and projected returns. While these elements are important, experienced lenders and institutional capital providers evaluate projects through a far more comprehensive lens. Their analysis extends to construction feasibility, budget accuracy, developer track record, capital structure strength, collateral coverage, and the viability of the project’s exit strategy.
The same considerations are equally important for EB-5 investors. Beyond marketing materials and project presentations, EB-5 investments are ultimately tied to the fundamentals of an underlying real estate development, the integrity of the capital stack, and the overall management of investment risk. Understanding how projects are evaluated from a financing perspective can therefore provide investors with a more informed framework for assessing potential EB-5 opportunities.
For ARCFE, this recognition reflects more than just a transaction volume. It also demonstrates the institutional-level real estate financing expertise behind our EB-5 platform and reinforces one of the most important factors in EB-5 investing: the ability to properly evaluate and manage project risk.
Private Lenders vs. Banks
Construction financing is widely regarded as one of the most complex segments of real estate lending. Unlike stabilized assets with established cash flow, construction projects involve multiple layers of uncertainty throughout the development cycle. Construction costs, permitting timelines, market absorption, leasing or sales performance, and future refinancing conditions may all shift before a project reaches completion. As a result, construction lenders must evaluate not only the project itself but also the developer’s execution abilities, contingency planning and overall risk management framework.
For traditional banks, these loans are subject to rigorous underwriting standards and internal approval processes. In addition to project fundamentals, banks must also consider regulatory requirements, capital reserve obligations, portfolio concentration limits, and broader balance sheet risk exposure. In today’s elevated interest rate environment, many financial institutions have therefore become increasingly selective in their construction lending activities.
The 3 Advantages of Private Lenders
Private lenders have continued to play an increasingly important role within the real estate financing landscape. Their value proposition is often centered around three key advantages: speed, flexibility, and certainty of execution.
Speed
Real estate development projects frequently operate within highly sensitive transaction timelines. Whether tied to land acquisitions, construction commencement, refinancing deadlines, or funding obligations following key milestones, delays in capital availability can materially impact a project’s progress and economics. Private lenders are often positioned to move more efficiently than traditional financial institutions, allowing developers to respond quickly to time-critical opportunities and project milestones.
Flexibility
Unlike traditional banks, which typically adhere to standardized underwriting parameters and institutional approval frameworks, private lenders often have greater flexibility in structuring financing solutions around the unique characteristics of a project. Loan terms may be tailored based on factors such as collateral quality, sponsor experience, construction budgets, leasing or sales assumptions, and projected exit strategies. This flexibility can be particularly valuable for complex or transitional projects that may not fit within traditional bank lending criteria.
Certainty of Execution
For developers, the certainty that financing will close on schedule and capital will be available when needed is often just as important as the cost of financing itself. In a volatile market environment, execution risk can have significant consequences for project timelines and overall feasibility. As a result, many developers prioritize lenders with the ability to deliver reliable and timely funding, particularly for projects with strict development or refinancing deadlines.
Private Lender & Bank: A Win-Win Partnership, Rather Than a Competition
An increased presence of private lenders should not be interpreted as a diminished role for banks within the construction financing landscape. Traditional banks remain a cornerstone of the NYC real estate capital markets, particularly regional institutions with extensive local market knowledge and long-standing developer relationships. The PincusCo rankings also highlighted the continued strength and relevance of several regional banks actively participating in the sector.
Among the regional institutions highlighted in the report, Ponce Bank stood out for its notable growth in construction lending activity. In 2025, the bank originated approximately $517M in loans across 15 transactions, compared to roughly $283M across 12 transactions in 2024. Much of this activity was concentrated in Brooklyn and Queens, underscoring the bank’s continued focus on NYC’s local development market.
Importantly, this growth does not appear to have been driven by a limited number of large transactions, but rather by a consistent pipeline of lending activity across multiple projects. For many mid-sized developments, regional banks such as Ponce Bank remain highly valuable participants in the financing ecosystem. Their familiarity with local neighborhoods, long-standing relationships within the development community, and nuanced understanding of the market demand often allow them to evaluate projects with a level of local insight that larger institutions may not always possess.
It is important to recognize that the relationships between lenders within the real estate financing market are often collaborative rather than purely competitive. In practice, many transactions involve coordination among multiple capital providers, each serving a different role within the financing structure. For example, iCross Capital has, in certain projects, participated alongside institutions such as Ponce Bank in project financing transactions.
Within NYC's real estate capital market, these collaborative structures are common. Banks frequently participate in syndicated loan arrangements to collectively finance larger developments, while private lenders and traditional financial institutions may also work together to address a project’s specific capital needs. Such partnerships help diversify risk exposure, increase overall lending capacity, and improve the certainty and efficiency of transaction execution - all of which are critical considerations in complex real estate development.
For example: If a project needs a $100M loan, one institution may believe that assuming all the risk alone is too concentrated; but if two or three institutions participate, the risk will be spread out proportionately and each institution can control the risk within a more reasonable range.
Why Construction Lending Experience Matters in EB-5
In EB-5, investors are not only investing in an immigration benefit, but also participating in real estate and business projects that must successfully execute construction, financing, leasing, and operational milestones. Understanding the capital stack, market conditions, construction timelines, and borrower risk is critical.
Having a parent company with direct construction lending experience provides ARCFE with a significant advantage when evaluating EB-5 opportunities. Construction lenders are often among the most risk-focused participants in a project because their capital is directly tied to successful execution. This requires rigorous due diligence, conservative underwriting standards, ongoing project monitoring, and a detailed understanding of local market dynamics. That expertise directly translates into how ARCFE approaches EB-5 project selection and risk management.
The Importance of Experienced Lenders and Financial Oversight
For EB-5 investors, choosing a regional center and project team with strong real estate finance capabilities can play a meaningful role in both project stability and overall execution. At ARCFE, our connection to iCross Capital reflects a foundation built not only on immigration knowledge, but also on real-world experience in NYC real estate finance, underwriting, and development risk assessment.
As the EB-5 industry continues to evolve, investors are paying closer attention not just to immigration eligibility, but also to who is behind the project, how risk is managed, and whether the team truly understands the local market. We believe that experience is critical in the competitive and complex environment of NYC.
Over a Decade of Experience in NYC Real Estate Financing
iCross Capital
iCross Capital is a NYC-based cross-border financial services firm focused on serving high-net-worth individuals and families both in the U.S. and internationally. The firm provides a comprehensive range of services, including real estate investment funds, EB-5 investment immigration, residential mortgage financing, tax and estate planning, and broader family office services.
There are three core platforms under the iCross Capital umbrella including: iCross Fund, ARCFE EB-5 Regional Center, and iCross Concierge. Together, these branches provide integrated financial and immigration solutions designed to support clients through investment, wealth preservation, and long-term financial planning.
Risk management and due diligence remain central to the firm’s investment philosophy. iCross employs a rigorous evaluation process when selecting projects, with a strong focus on the developer’s qualifications, market fundamentals, capital structure, and execution risks. The firm also maintains active oversight throughout the investment lifecycle, managing end-to-end operations from project evaluation through execution and monitoring.
ARCFE: Award-Winning EB-5 Regional Center
ARCFE is an award-winning EB-5 Regional Center with more than a decade of experience in real estate financing and immigration investment management. Originally designated by the USCIS in 2013 and redesignated under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act (RIA) in 2022, ARCFE has established a strong track record in structuring and managing EB-5 investments across NYC and New Jersey markets.
Our team brings together professionals from the immigration, real estate, and financial industries, including team members with CFA and CPA credentials, providing investors with a multidisciplinary approach to both immigration and investment plans.
To date, ARCFE has successfully raised and managed EB-5 capital for 20 projects, boasting a 100% project approval rate. Under the pre-RIA era, all ARCFE-sponsored projects successfully repaid their EB-5 loans, totaling more than $211M in repayments. In addition, ARCFE has successfully returned 100% of EB-5 capital to all eligible investors.
With a strong emphasis on due diligence, risk management, and project oversight, ARCFE focuses on partnering with experienced developers and selecting projects backed by strong market fundamentals. Our experience in NYC-area real estate financing and development allows us to carefully evaluate opportunities and manage projects throughout the full investment lifecycle.
