Frankel Family Trust’s Villas at The Rim is one of the highest-profile and biggest multifamily projects under construction in San Antonio. That, combined with FFT’s ultra-long-term hold plan have developers Legacy Alliance doing things a little differently. Legacy Alliance partners Brad DeYoung, Fred Hopkins, Tome Ekenberg and Chris Leavell tell us Villas at The Rim has an amenity package unlike anything they’ve ever worked on. Since FFT will hold the asset for generations, design is centered around outlasting everyone on the team, and FFT isn’t afraid to bump things up a level. Speaking of generations, Brad and Chris tell us the community is geared to a wide range of prospective tenants, with an eye not just to attracting all demographics but also to making sure they cohabitate well.
Villas at The Rim is just one of three multifamily communities underway at The Rim—Trinsic is building on the north end, Lynd is underway in the middle of the development and Legacy Alliance/FFT are on the south side by Top Golf. (There's been talk of more communities coming to The Rim as well.) Brad and Chris say Stan Thomas has done such a wonderful job on The Rim and it has such strong retail activity that it’s no wonder multifamily developers are hopping in on the action; it’s the natural next step to bring in residents.
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Villas at The Rim is 427 units and an urban wrap, which has its challenges relative to other types of multifamily construction, the gents say. They’ve been using BIM to ID and remedy potential problems in advance, a practice that’s used widely in commercial development but almost never in multifamily. It’s paid for itself multiple times over, Chris tells us, including catching an issue that would’ve delayed construction at least one month. Instead, despite being a very challenging site from a rock perspective, GC Cadence McShane is ahead of schedule. Legacy Alliance has a number of projects underway, including 12 retail centers under construction or breaking ground before year-end across small Texas markets. It’s also got another multifamily project in the works that’ll be even bigger than Villas, although they can’t share details yet.
