Northland Investment Corp. Gains Foothold in Nevada Market

Northland Investment Corp. has entered the Nevada market. The investor has acquired Lumina at Spanish Springs, a 330-unit apartment complex in the Reno-Sparks area after tracking the market for several years. The property is a new-construction garden-style community that had a healthy leasing activity through the pandemic.

“We have been tracking the Nevada market for several years now. Most major cities in Nevada are very tax-friendly and it has a low cost of living, so we have seen a lot of inward migration,” Mike Campbell, associate VP of investments at Northland, tells GlobeSt.com. “We identified Nevada several years ago as target market. We have had some swings and misses, but this was an opportunity for us to get a foothold with brand new class-A garden product that really checks all of the boxes for us.”

Lumina at Spanish Springs is a typical investment for the firm, which targets strong suburban locations in the Sunbelt region. Currently, 50% of the firm’s portfolio is located in the Sunbelt region. “It really fit our strengths and competencies as well as our future goals to continue in this space,” adds Campbell.

While Nevada—including Reno and Las Vegas—have been considered target investment markers for the last several years, the state was also hit hard by the loss of tourism and gaming revenue during the pandemic. However, Campbell says the market also showed resiliency over the last year. “The local gaming industry was greatly impacted, but over the last five years, the local market has diversified away from that industry as the primary source of employment in the area,” he says. “We have seen that with the development of the TRI Center and a lot of Bay Area companies that are starting to expand operations as secondary offices. Over the last 12 months, we have seen a lot of growth and there has been a lot of people that have fled to secondary locations for a better quality of life with lower costs. So, overall, we have seen positive trends.”

The purchase will likely be a catalyst for more growth in the region. “We consider ourselves to be broadly opportunistic. Now that we have a flag planted in the market, we will look broadly at more garden opportunities, mid-rise, high-rise and development plays,” says Campbell. “For us, it is a matter of having that first flag planted and then finding opportunities to grow. Given our nature and the ability to look at more complex deals, it is really a luxury that we found something that we consider our bread-and-butter, and now we can look at the more opportunistic deals that will help us grow.”