News
MEPT Buys The Metro, May Build More
November 20, 2012
| Policemen, firemen, teachers, and other public employees have purchased a well-known Downtown Denver apartment complex. And they may build new apartments nearby. (So while the policemen and teachers are out constructing, we can all be truants.) | |
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| Multi-Employer Property Trust just snagged The Metro—the 415-unit apartment on Delgany Street, by Union Station in LoDo—for $90.8M cash, one of Denver's largest, single multifamily transactions this year. Bentall Kennedy’s Jim Howard, who handles Western US investments for the over-$5B real estate equity fund, tells us The Metro offered MEPT a good location at a lower basis than new construction. The LoDo neighborhood “is hands down the most attractive area for young professionals to move,” Jim says. | |
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| MEPT plans to spend a few million dollars sprucing up the property (built in 2002) and its units, including installing granite countertops, new flooring, and lighting, Jim says, “bringing it up to a level competitive with new construction in that market.” The rents are at a place that MEPT can move them relative to new construction, he says. The fund also owns the nearby 400k SF 1900 Sixteenth St office tower (above) where it has a pad site to develop another 152 units of apartments above the parking garage. “That is something we’re considering,” Jim says. |
