ORLANDO-Mallard Cove Apartments, a 344-unit multifamily complex, has sold for $14 million. Tampa-based Blue Rock Partners purchased the asset in a strategic partnership with Deerfield Beach-based Konover South. The deal marks Blue Rock Partners’ second Orland-area apartment acquisition in as many months.
Cole Whitaker, head of Hendricks & Partners’ southeast regional office Orlando, brokered the transaction. The seller was Midland Savings Group, acting as servicer for KeyBank. The property, which is 87% occupied, will be rebranded as The Park at Cambridge Apartments.
“This property was a lender-owned REO, so the pricing was very attractive as well as the financing,” Randy Ferreira, co-managing partner at Blue Rock Partners, tells GlobeSt.com. “We like this neighborhood. The complex is located within minutes of the Orlando International Airport and Downtown Orlando in the Conway area. The floor plans are strong.”
Blue Rock plans to invest an additional $2.5 million in improvements to the property. Exterior upgrades will include new signage, a new fitness center and business center, European-style coffee shop and redesigned clubhouse with new furniture, gated entry system, pool furniture, landscaping, painting as well as tennis court and parking lot upgrades. Interior upgrades will include new carpet, appliances, counter tops, cabinets, ceramic tile floors and back splashes, light fixtures, chair rails and molding, designer paint colors and more.
“The pricing is right down the center of the fairway for assets of this quality that we’ve seen trade this year,” Whitaker tells GlobeSt.com. “Multifamily is in favor because of the fact that you have decent liquidity in the market with Fannie and Freddie willing to finance stabilized assets. There are also a number of bridge products out for properties that are not stabilized.”
Blue Rock has acquired four multifamily properties in 18 months. In August, the company closed on the 168-unit Woodbridge Apartments and has plans to close on three additional projects in Orland and Tampa in 2010 and the first quarter of 2011. The company has the backing of Konover South, an affiliate of the much larger West Hartford, CT-based Simon Konover Company, which acquired a strategic stake in Blue Rock in mid-2009.
“It’s seemingly getting more competitive for multifamily properties in Florida, but groups in other states still do not see Florida as a great place to buy properties yet,” Ferreira says. “We kind of like it that way because we feel like it’s the right time and place to buy multifamily properties.”
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