542-Unit Apartment Complex Fetches $72M-Plus

PITTSBURG, CA-The 542-unit Kirker Creek Apartments here has changed hands for $72.5 million, according to local brokers familiar with the transaction. The 47-acre property was the sole area asset of an East Coast investor group that self-managed the property. The new owner is a joint venture of Saris Regis Group of Northern California LP and Bridge Urban Infill Land Development LLC, a for-profit affiliate of Bridge Housing that is comprised of Bridge and CalPERS.Located off Kirker Pass Road at 1000 Pheasant Dr., the property was 92% occupied at the time of sale. It was developed in 1988 and includes 49 residential buildings. Saris-Regis SVP Kenneth Gladstein tells GlobeSt.com the investment has an initial cap rate of about 5.10%.”There are two apartment properties here that have sold to condo converters so far this year and one that is being converted to affordable units, so the market’s about to lose 500 market-rate units and there’s no new units being built,” Gladstein says. “We think that will play well in terms of supply and demand.”Moreover, he says Saris Regis can manage the property more efficiently than the previous owners and the Bay Area is poised for a rental rebound after suffering a 30% drop in rents since the tech bust. “One of our specialties is finding assets that are under managed,” he says. The property was marketed by Mark Cunningham of Commercial Realty Group Investments. Saris Regis plans to hold the property for the long term, Gladstein says. The company picked up the property with a $47-million fixed rate acquisition loan from GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corp. Renovations include replacing the siding on about 50% of the complex.Sares Regis has spent $250 million on about 2,500 units in the Bay Area over the past eight years and still owns about half of the units. Its area complexes include Stoneridge Apartments at Diablo Hills in Walnut Creek, Redwood Park Apartments in Santa Rosa and Meridian at the Crossing in San Bruno. The firm and its affiliates currently own and/or manage approximately 13,000 rental-housing units and 14 million sf of commercial real estate in the Western US, primarily California.