Many apartment high-rise units are being converted into condominiums, a trend Sellers says he loves."A great many of the existing high-rise units in Chicago, for example, have been converted into condo," Sellers tells GlobeSt.com. "Certainly, there is a lot of embedded value in that. From the perspective of our shareholders, when our competitors get converted, the supply goes down and your rental rates increase dramatically. So frankly, we like condo conversions very much."

The merged company would have a $994 million line of credit at its disposal. "Archstone-Smith represents the best residential franchise," says Robert H. Smith, who becomes chairman of the new company's Charles E. Smith division that will focus on the high-rise portfolio. Smith Residential Chief Operating Officer Wesley D. Minami will be president of the high-rise division.

Smith says his REIT was exploring other merger possibilities but the union with Archstone "was too good an opportunity to pass."In addition to Smith, executive committee chairman Robert P. Kogod and President and CEO Ernest A. Gerardi Jr. join the new board of directors.

The new company will be based in Denver with divisional offices in Arlington, VA; Irvine, CA and Atlanta.

Although he has no plans for condo high-rises in Denver, Sellers notes the company owns two sites in the Central Platte Valley, where it plans a four-story and an eight-story building. The two sites likely will have about 640 units when completed.

"We'll start the four-story project in two or three months and the eight-story building after that, depending on market conditions," he says. "The eight-story building is really a mid-rise, not a high-rise, and because it's right across the street from a four-story building, we'll build that ourselves. But we'll certainly consult with Charles Smith on it."

The purchase creates the third-largest company based in Colorado. "We love living in Denver," Sellers says.