Commercial & Residential Property Blog

Austin, Texas—Apartment Realty Advisors (ARA) has announced the sale of Rio Grande Square Apartments, a 17-unit community located in the heart of the University of Texas at Austin West Campus area.

Newtown Square, Pa.-based Balfour Beatty Campus Solutions L.L.C. has broken ground on the $123 million Innovation Village Apartments at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Fla. In conjunction with joint venture partner Capstone Development Corp. of Birmingham, Ala., BBCS is spearheading development of the 1,216-bed project in a public-private partnership with the college.

ATLANTA, GA – Place/BV Student Housing Fund, LLC, a real estate investment fund focused on the acquisition and development of student housing properties nationwide, announces the closing of the construction loan for Tailor Lofts in Chicago, Illinois. Tailor Lofts will serve the students of more than 20 Chicago area colleges and universities, including the University of Illinois at Chicago, Kent College of Law, Columbia College, Robert Morris University, Roosevelt University, and DePaul University. The project is scheduled for delivery in August 2010. BVP Managers, LLC, a joint venture between Atlanta, Georgia-based Place Properties, an affiliated group of companies and Chicago-based Blue Vista Capital Management, LLC, serves as the Manager of the Fund.

Philadelphia-based Campus Apartments, whose chief officer was named MFE’s 2009 Executive of the Year, recently expanded its third-party management portfolio to include 14 new properties.

HFF (Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P.) recently arranged a $27.12 million construction loan for Sterling Crimson Apartments, a student housing community near the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

HFF worked on behalf of the borrower, The Dinerstein Cos., to secure the construction loan through a regional bank.

Overall, student housing is recession-resistant because of U.S. demographics, which are producing an increasing number of high school graduates, says Jim Arbury, senior vice president of National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) which recently released a report that seeks to determine whether the dramatic U.S. economic downturn has had an impact on enrollment and on-campus dormitory vacancy rates.

NorthMarq Capital has arranged combined first mortgage financing of $6 million for two Collegiate Station student housing properties.

Collegiate Station at Canyon (pictured left) is located in Canyon, Texas and features 108 units with 336 bedrooms. Collegiate Station at Weatherford (pictured right) is located in Weatherford, Okla. and features 120 units with 360 bedrooms.

At a time when many construction projects languish in limbo awaiting the turnaround of the economy, university projects continue moving forward.

“The higher education market is going fairly strong because there are only a few markets with money and that market is moving at a fairly strong pace,” Rick Johnson, COO of student housing developer Collegiate Development Services in Irving, Texas, told CPE.