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Another foreign investor has bought into the Philadelphia market, this time in the student housing sector.
Mapletree Investments Pte, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Temasek, has purchased the 33-story, 347-unit Evo at Cira Centre South from Brandywine Realty Trust and Harrison Street Real Estate Capital for $197.5M, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Though Brandywine is pouring money into new construction in that area of University City with the recently completed FMC Tower and the just-underway Schuylkill Yards, it has taken opportunities to fund those ambitions by selling some of its previous generation of projects there, with Evo and 2016's sale of the former 30th Street Post Office building to Korea Investment Management Co. for a Philly-record $354M.
According to a JLL report, the city's largest transaction ever in terms of square footage — last year's sale of Centre Square in Center City — also involved foreign capital. Nightingale Properties reportedly brought on Kuwait-based Wafra Group for the $328M purchase.
Centre Square was among the last major office properties to trade in this cycle, according to Equus Capital Partners Director of Investments Kyle Turner, but investor interest and available capital remain plentiful in the Philadelphia area. Mapletree's investment focus in America has been on student housing, where Evo has become its 17th purchase across 16 cities.
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