Southeast

Extended Stay America

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Blackstone Real Estate Partners and Starwood Capital Group have agreed to form a 50/50 joint venture to acquire Extended Stay America (NYSE: STAY) in a deal valued at $6 billion. Barry Sternlicht, CEO of Starwood Capital (NYSE: STWD), cited Extended Stay America’s performance amid the COVID-19 pandemic as a key factor behind the acquisition. “Extended Stay has demonstrated resilience over the past year despite persistent challenges due to government lockdowns and travel restrictions,” says Sternlicht. “We are excited about the company’s growth opportunity as restrictions ease and we’re confident that, in partnership with Blackstone, our team has the right experience to drive continued success.” “Travel and leisure is one of Blackstone’s highest conviction investment themes, and we have confidence in the extended stay model,” adds Tyler Henritze, Blackstone’s head of U.S. acquisitions. The Charlotte-based hotel owner operates 649 Extended Stay America hotels in the United States spanning over 69,000 rooms. The company’s subsidiary, hospitality REIT ESH Hospitality Inc., owns 563 of those hotels. The remaining 86 properties are franchised, according to Extended Stay America’s fourth-quarter 2020 earnings report. Blackstone and Starwood Capital’s cash offer is for $19.50 per share, a premium of 15.1 percent to Extended Stay …

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  Student housing lending faces a number of uncertainties as 2021 begins: agency policies affecting available sources of lending, the availability of distressed properties, special considerations for Tier 2 and 3 schools and the difficulties of obtaining construction and permanent financing under certain circumstances. Timothy S. Bradley, founder of TSB Capital Advisors and a principal of TSB Realty, explains his outlook on 2021 for the student housing industry, including some of the intricacies in student housing finance versus conventional multifamily. While the two classes did not face vastly different outcomes before COVID, “Post-COVID is a completely different story. There is a significant delta when you are looking at permanent financing for student housing right now versus conventional. The agencies [have enacted] COVID reserves that have been instituted in new loan originations — and most new loan originations are for acquisitions versus refinancing right now. We are starting to see them reduce the reserves, but they were doing it for both multifamily and student.” Bradley explains, “However the interest rates that, over the past three to four months, you could get for conventional housing versus student ranged anywhere from 50 to 75 basis points better for conventional. This allows the conventional market cap rates to keep compressing …

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“When you’re hot, you’re hot.” These old lyrics from Jerry Reed ring loud and clear these days for industrial real estate in Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Over the past five years, Nashville has been on a tear with industrial activity. At the start of 2021, Nashville appears to be pushing the fast forward button, even with COVID-19. There is a growing list of buyers, developers and users looking to enter the Nashville industrial market at unprecedented levels. With that said, can the supply of industrial product and land keep up with the demand? Where will the product be built? And what will it look like? Historically, Nashville has never seen a large supply of speculative big boxes built in comparison to our neighbors such as Memphis and Atlanta. Unless a build-to-suit, larger buildings have had a longer lease-up time in comparison to our neighboring cities. Nashville is a meat and potato market with the vast majority of our deals in the 75,000- to 150,000-square-oot range. Sure, like any market today we have seen our large third-party logistics deals with the likes of Amazon, Geodis and FedEx leading the way. Typically, our market may see one or two of these larger …

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629 E Main Street

RICHMOND, VA. — BHI, a commercial bank based in New York, has provided $26.5 million in construction financing for the redevelopment of 629 E. Main St. in downtown Richmond, a 12- story office building that will be converted to a mixed-use property. Douglas Development Corp. (DDC) is the borrower, and it plans to convert the property into 188 rental units with studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments, as well as 132,806 square feet of commercial space. Built in 1922, the property will have a complete renovation of the building, while still preserving its historic interior and architectural details. The property is located 0.4 miles from the Virginia State Capitol building and a half-mile from City Hall. BHI is the U.S. operation of Israel-based Bank Hapoalim. 629 Main Street is the second transaction that BHI has funded for DDC.

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Newtowne 20

ANNAPOLIS, MD. — Pennrose and the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis (HACA) have broken ground on the Newtowne 20 revitalization at 810 Brooke Court in Annapolis. The redevelopment will replace the previous public housing property with new apartments, a new community building and open space. The project is slated to be complete in spring 2022. The Newtowne 20 redevelopment will replace the former 78 units with energy-efficient apartments in a mix of both stacked and garden-style apartment buildings with a central green space. Plans for the site also include a 3,500-square-foot community clubhouse with amenity spaces, new basketball court and a tot lot. Previous Newtowne 20 residents have been temporarily rehoused and will have the opportunity to return to the new development once complete. The Newtowne 20 redevelopment involves a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program that enables housing authorities to convert public housing properties to a more stable Section 8, voucher-based model. This program allows housing authorities to leverage private funding sources for projects like Newtowne 20. The owner, a joint venture doing business as Newtowne 20 LLC, is funding the roughly $24 million project with multiple layers of capital sources, including multifamily bonds, …

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Business Park in Lake Mary

LAKE MARY, FLA. — Ten Capital Management, a privately held real estate investment management firm, has acquired five buildings in Technology Park, a business park located at 100, 200, 250, 255 and 525 Technology Parkway in Lake Mary. Somerset Properties is Ten Capital’s partner on the transaction. The seller and sales price were not disclosed. The Technology Park property is a 297,386-square-foot, five-building flex-office and light industrial campus. Recent leasing activity at the property has resulted in more than 91,000 square feet of new tenants over the last 12 months, and it was 87 percent leased to 16 tenants at the time of sale. The business park offers access to Interstate 4 and Lake Mary Boulevard.

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Residence Inn

MIAMI — Hersha Hospitality Trust has sold the Residence Inn by Marriott, a three-building, 140-room hotel at 2835 Tigertail Ave. in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood. John Crotty, Michael Fay, David Duckworth, Brian de la Fé, Emily Brais and Berkley Bloodworth of Avison Young represented the seller in the transaction. AB Asset Management purchased the hotel for an undisclosed price. Situated at the intersection of Tigertail Avenue and Mary Street, the hotel sits on over two acres. The property is 14 miles from Miami Beach and 5.6 miles from Miami International Airport.

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Tryon House

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NorthMarq has arranged an $8.6 million bridge loan for the acquisition and renovation of Tryon House Apartments located at 508 North Tryon St. in Charlotte. The 84-unit property is located near the city’s Uptown district. Dave Stewart and Ryan Taylor of NorthMarq arranged the financing through a national debt fund on behalf of the buyer, Elevate Capital. The seller was not disclosed. Tryon House was built in 1927, and is close to all of Uptown’s amenities, such as the LYNX Blue Line light rail system, Charlotte’s banking headquarters and The EpiCentre and First Ward Business Center.

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  The strength of multifamily has been well solidified over the past few years, but a new contender in the rental market is making waves, according to Kris Mikkelsen, executive vice president, Walker & Dunlop Investment Sales. Single-family rental (SFR) and build-for-rent (BFR) spaces are growing increasingly popular. An SFR is a group of homes-for-rent pooled together for investment purposes BFR properties are purpose-built housing operated as SFR investments “SFR is in the distributed model: individual homes managed by tech-driven management platforms that were the formation of the single-family REITs you see in existence today. The build-for-rent space existed pre-COVID but has really been accelerated post-COVID as the end consumer looks to de-densify,” says Mikkelsen. Much of the demand has been driven to more suburban markets, with COVID-19 creating a sudden and palpable need for space among renters. Other factors — including declining home ownership rates and the high demand for multifamily options — have all contributed to the growth of this asset class and subsequent interest from larger institutional investors. Watch Mikkelsen’s interview to learn about demand for SFR/BFR space and changing renter demographics accelerating the growth of this asset class. This article is posted as part of REBusinessOnline’s Finance Insight series. Click here to …

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Serenity Apartments

COLUMBUS, GA. — Elevation Financial Group has sold Serenity Apartments, a 211-unit multifamily community in Columbus, for $13 million. The buyer was not disclosed. Elevation purchased Serenity in July 2018 for $7.6 million, when it was 72 percent occupied. Since then the Orlando-based firm has made several enhancements, including the revitalization of over 50 apartment units, a complete rehabilitation of the leasing office, new carpet in all exterior breezeways, exterior painting of the townhome buildings and parking lot paving. At the time of sale, the property was 96 percent occupied. Serenity is situated within eight miles of Fort Benning Army Base and three miles from Columbus State University. The property marks the sixth disposition for Elevation Real Property Fund VI. Properties remaining in the portfolio include a multifamily community in Alabama, one in Mississippi, two seniors housing properties in Virginia and one seniors housing community in Illinois.

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