The fully leased 185-unit apartment property features amenities including a public courtyard, water-feature fountain and a 1,900-square-foot private community room available to community groups for art exhibits and meeting space. Artist Walk also has a pool, clubhouse, in-unit washer/dryers, 9-foot ceilings and private balconies in select units. Artist Walk's 30,000 square feet of commercial space is fully leased to a collection of restaurant, service and fitness tenants.

“The Artist Walk project has been a catalyst for the revitalization of Fremont's Centerville district and truly meets the city's vision of adding transit-oriented, walkable urban living supported by fantastic retail amenities,” says Lily Mei, Fremont mayor.

As the fourth largest city in the Bay Area, Fremont's 220,000-person population provides the Centerville neighborhood in which Artist Walk is located with an active trade area serving a highly educated residential base and strong employment across a number of industries.

“Artist Walk is a great example of a public-private partnership between the city, the community and the developer,” Blake tells GlobeSt.com. “The city's goal was to create new, denser housing in a transit-rich location in order to ignite the renaissance of the historic Centerville District. Like so many technology-driven Bay Area cities, Fremont has generated tremendous job growth and needs to create housing in all areas of the city to serve its major employers and help mitigate the overall affordability issue.”

Cushman & Wakefield arranged the transaction.

Indeed, the Bay Area remains an economic powerhouse, fueled by a strong technology industry and employment, and as such, the multifamily market has maintained strong rent growth since 2010, says the Kidder Mathews report. The average monthly asking rate of $2,765 was up 2.3% from the previous year.