LA residential developer Watt Communities just scooped up a 24.5-acre commercial office site in Silicon Valley. Atalyst Capital Market managing director John Gilchrist says his investment and mortgage banking firm, which has Vegas and S.F. offices, just arranged $80M in financing for the deal, which ended up being in the $80Ms. Plans for the site haven't been released yet, but we do know Watt has been developing planned residential neighborhoods throughout the Western US for more than 60 years.
In December we caught up with Nadine Watt, prez of Watt Cos, who says she's zeroing in on "vacation destination" retail. (We'd be willing to do some research for her.) Also that month home-building arm Watt Communities (one of three biz units of Watt Cos) announced it's re-entering the NorCal region as market conditions improve. The man with more details behind the Silicon Valley acquisition is Watt's Max Frank, but he didn't return our call for comment.
Above, the interior of Watt's 280-unit South City Lights condo project in South S.F., built pre-recession. Now Watt will re-enter the market with three infill projects in Sacramento County. The first is Autumnwood in Citrus Heights, which should see the first of its 46 homes begin construction this summer on a 9.2-acre parcel. This is the first time Atalyst has worked with Watt, but expect to hear their name more this year. Atalyst was formed in July 2013 and has several deals in the pipeline throughout the state, John tells us. Together, its principals have managed and closed over $3.5B in transactions.
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