Tallahassee Housing Market Targeted By Developer
All the problems swirling around the Sunshine State’s real estate climate don’t concern a developer looking to make his mark in the North Florida housing market.
Specifically, it’s the Tallahassee housing market spotlighted by Collier Enterprises with its purchase of The Village on Tharpe, a complex located at 1505 W. Tharpe St.
In May, Education Realty Trust Inc. agreed to sell The Village on Tharpe for $50 million to Tharpe Street Apartments LLC and N.W. 14th Street LLC, which are part of Collier Enterprises, based out of Gainesville.
It owns and operates several apartment communities in Florida, including four in Tallahassee, said company President Andy Hogshead.
Its current commercial real estate holdings in the area are Campus Walk, Franklin Pointe, Venetian Villas and Villa Del Lago. Jamie Swick of the acquisitions department closed the deal Tuesday for The Village.
“We like Tallahassee as a market,” Hogshead said, adding that there is “a great opportunity for housing” with the two universities and community college.
“It’s a lucrative market,” he said, speaking of the Florida mortgage possibilities there. “We looked to add to our existing properties.”
Collier Enterprises intends to improve the “quality of life” at The Village on Tharpe, said Hogshead, who acknowledged the reports of past problems at the student-housing community. “It’s those kinds of things that attention to detail and prudent capital investment can change.”
In addition to the purchase price, the company will invest several million dollars in The Village on Tharpe within the next two years, noting that the property’s name initially will not change.
Education Realty Trust owned the complex for about two years. It is a self-managed, self-administered real estate investment trust that develops, owns and manages more than 60 student-housing communities in 21 states, said Bob Hetherington, a spokesman for the trust.
When it became a public company in January 2005 after nearly 50 years as a private operation, it acquired a portfolio of communities that included The Village on Tharpe, which has 486 units or 1,554 beds, he said.
“Presently, there are a lot of investors who want to get into collegiate student housing. And given our other collegiate-housing communities in Tallahassee, we thought that this sale was a good opportunity to redeploy our capital,” Hetherington said about the sale.
Whether units become available for individual Florida home loan applicants or remain on the rental market, it will be interesting to see what becomes of this real estate deal.
SOURCE: Tallahassee Democrat
