One Firm Expands the Value in Its Value-Add Multifamily Strategy
“We’ll still have our bread-and-butter value add, though we’ll maybe focus more on 70s, 80s, early 90s, and we’ll cast a wider net on this core plus part.”
Privately held real estate investment firm 29th Street Capital has made an acquisition that represents an expansion to its strategy.
Earlier this month it reported that it had acquired Parq at Iliff Station. The 424-unit, Class A+ luxury apartment community in the Southeast Aurora submarket of Denver, went for $134 million.
The company, which launched in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis, has been thoroughly focused on multifamily properties since day one. The acquisition of Parq at Iliff Station adds a focus on higher-end residences in addition to its long-standing “B and C properties in A and B locations,” as Rob Gersch, senior vice president of acquisitions, tells GlobeSt.com.
The company had focused on properties with “some sort of good story, whether it’s a submarket with limited supply, mismanaged assets, mom and pop operations, or absentee owners, [or potential for] value-add upsides through capital improvement and improvement in management and operations,” Gersh adds.
“We’ve acquired plus or minus 25,000 units but we’ve sold some over time,” he says. That had left 29SC with about 15,000 existing multifamily units, with a 3,500-unit pipeline of additions—1,700 units currently under construction and 1,300 to 1,800 in development.
The Parq property, though offered opportunistic—although not a “one-off opportunity”—entrée to a companion value-add strategy, allowing the company “to further enhance our current portfolio,” Gersh says. In a press release, the company refers to it as part of a new “core plus strategy.”
The additional target would be “newer, larger, higher quality assets, where value can be added to by management efficiencies, energy saving programs, and improving market conditions.” Rather than exclusively “chasing product that were 60s, 70s, 80s vintage,” the new approach shifts to the 1990s, 2000s, and now a 2019 property.
“Park was a very unique opportunity for us to acquire a property off-market,” Gersh says. “A lot of that has to do with our presence. We’re located across 16 markets coast to coast. Because of that, we have a lot of local relationships. The developer experienced significant challenges during lease-up. We knew the developer for well over a year and got in touch when we understood there was some interest.”
“We’ll still have our bread-and-butter value add, though we’ll maybe focus more on 70s, 80s, early 90s, and we’ll cast a wider net on this core plus part. It’s another strategy, not a total shift in what we’re doing.”