ST. LOUIS—KBS Legacy Partners Apartment REIT has just made several major purchases of large multifamily properties, including one in Charlotte and another near the border of St. Louis and its more affluent suburbs. The Newport Beach, CA-based, public non-traded REIT just spent $41.8 million on the Lofts at the Highlands, a 200-unit, 246,612-square-foot mid-rise apartment community.
Tenants currently occupy 80% of the class A property. KBS REIT, which is sponsored by KBS Capital Advisors LLC and Legacy Partners Residential Realty LLC of Foster City, CA, has hired Mills Properties, Inc. to manage the property. It was built in 2006 and consists of two, five-story buildings and sits just south of historic Forest Park in St. Louis between the downtown and the suburban Clayton business district.
The surrounding neighborhood has become quite popular with developers. Currently, they have over 500 units under construction at Laclede Lofts, Cortona at Forest Park and City Walk. Both Laclede and Cortona should come online in 2014. And according to a 2014 forecast on the submarket recently published by Colliers, “rental rates are expected to remain steady in 2014 with occupancy continuing to climb.”
“Lofts at the Highlands benefits from its presence in the Clayton submarket, which has easy access to Forest Park, Washington University, and some of the region's most exclusive housing,” says W. Dean Henry, chief executive officer of the KBS REIT. “We believe the St. Louis market has potential for growth with many of the country's largest privately held corporations residing in close proximity.”
In October, GlobeSt.com reported that the office market in the St. Louis metro area was beginning to undergo a bit of a boom, especially the Clayton submarket.
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
