Apartment Building Trades for $20.3M

EL CERRITO, CA-Del Norte Place, a transit oriented community here with 135 apartments above 12 plaza level commercial and retail spaces, has been acquired by Fairfield Residential LLC of San Diego for $20.3 million. Fairfield is one of the nation’s largest institutional apartment owners. It owns or manages over 55,000 units throughout the United States.

The seller was the Ibex Group of San Francisco and the City of El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency, the original public/private partnership that developed and financed the landmark project in 1992. Financing for the sale involved a combination of low-income housing tax-advantaged bonds and a taxable mezzanine debt structure. Richard Knutson and John Leyvas of San Leandro, CA-based Moison Investment Co. handled both sides of the transaction.

Del Norte Place is located one block north of the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s El Cerrito Del Norte station. The development has received national attention and accolades for its creative utilization of the urban transit-village model. Property management has been handled by The John Stewart Company of San Francisco, which was also a co-developer.