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The global spread of the coronavirus is the unexpected event the U.S. commercial real estate industry feared would halt the country’s longest period of economic expansion. But when rent or mortgages come due, lenders are expected to exercise some level of flexibility to soften the blow. Wikimedia/Sparkx 11

While these are still early days in what some economists are already calling a recession, banks are expected to take a different tone in this downturn compared to the last.

In the last few days, the COVID-19 outbreak has had a significant impact on the stock and financial markets, but the virus hasn’t knocked them out yet. For construction deals specifically, lenders remain “open for business,” according to Shlomi Ronen of Dekel Capital.

“Things are slower and people are figuring things out,” Ronen, a principal at Dekel Capital, tells GlobeSt.com. “Lenders remain open for business. Some debt funds have communicated that they are on the sidelines.

A 74,000-square-foot mixed-use creative office building near Culver City has received $59.3 million in construction financing.

The developers of the project, located at 5950 Jefferson Blvd., are Sawtelle-based Urban Offerings Inc. and Meridian Group Ltd.

Dekel Capital Inc. arranged the financing.

The loan, which was provided by an unnamed institutional fund manager, will be used to demolish an existing building and replace it with a four-story creative office building with ground-level retail.

As fear and panic rises daily due to more cases reported of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) have jointly encouraged financial institutions to meet the needs of customers and members affected by the illness.

“The agencies understand that many financial institutions may face current staffing and other challenges,” said the federal agencies in their joint statement.

The rapid spread and growing fear of the novel coronavirus is disrupting financial markets and devastating the industries that commercial real estate depend on.

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The fallout is starkly displayed at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — the two largest in the Western Hemisphere — as fewer and fewer shipments arrive.

Coronavirus,  which first emerged in Wuhan, a port city in the central Hubei province in China in late December, has since emerged on every continent except Antarctica. As health officials work to stem the spread and impact of the health epidemic, which has infected close to 90,000 people and killed more than 3,000 to date, the global business community is grabbling with a potential crisis of its own.

Over the last decade,