Melia Homes apparently got itself a relative bargain for a Newport Beach apartment complex it bought last month.
Now comes the hard part: The Irvine-based builder must get the site entitled for a for-sale home project.
Last month, I was the first to report privately held Melia Homes struck a deal to buy Irvine Co.’s Mariner Square apartment complex, a 114-unit rental community near the intersection of Irvine Boulevard and Westcliff Drive.
Mariner Square is on the Newport Beach side of Irvine Boulevard, which divides the city from Eastside Costa Mesa.
At the time of last month’s story, the sale had just closed but a purchase price hadn’t been disclosed. Property records have since indicated that the roughly five-acre site went for about $23.3 million, or $204,000 per unit.
That’s on the low side compared to some older Orange County apartment complexes Irvine Co. sold over the past year in Placentia, Santa Ana and Tustin, some of which went for about $250,000 per unit, according to property records.
Mariner Square was built in 1968. Irvine Co. described the property as a “boutique townhome community.” Its one-bedroom apartments were listed for rent in December at about $2,100 per month, while a few two-bedroom units were listed at around $4,000.
Phoenix-based Alliance Residential Co. took over management of the property following the sale.
Melia Homes doesn’t plan to keep it a rental property long term. Prior to the sale closing, it filed preliminary plans with the city of Newport Beach to raze the property and replace it with a 92-unit home community.
The three-story condos would be built in a mix of stand-alone and attached homes in various styles: coastal farmhouse, beach cottage, and beach bungalow, according to documents filed with the city.
“Please know that potential changes would not occur prior to 2019,” Alliance Residential said in a letter to residents at the time of the sale.
The city noted that the project likely requires a California Coastal Commission review, an often lengthy process, but that an environmental impact report probably wouldn’t be required.
Melia Homes has built several other infill housing projects in the vicinity of Mariner Square over the past few years, but none as large as the project it’s proposing.
Florida First
Birtcher Anderson Realty’s acquisition push outside of OC has led to Florida.
The San Juan Capistrano-based real estate investor recently closed on Tri-County Business Park, a 676,735-square-foot industrial park in the Tampa Bay region.
Birtcher Anderson paid $40.4 million for the business park in a venture with Denver-based investment management firm JCR Capital.
The property is on 76.5 acres and holds 20 buildings built between 1980 and 1988. It was 75% occupied at the time of sale.
The business park is one of the largest flex projects in Tampa Bay, according to brokers in the Tampa office of Cushman & Wakefield who worked on the deal.
The Florida buy is the first sizable reported deal that Birtcher Anderson and JCR have been involved in since 2016, when they paid $26.5 million for three Phoenix-area business parks.
Other institutional investors that Birtcher Anderson has partnered with in recent years include Merced Capital LP in Minneapolis and Kentfield-based Restart Investments; together they bought a $64 million portfolio of industrial properties in Northern California two years ago.
Birtcher Anderson has managed more than 22 million square feet of commercial property for its own investment and for private and public investment entities over the past 40 years. Most of the properties were in Southern California until its recent out-of-state push.
The company is led by longtime OC real estate veterans Arthur Birtcher and Bob Anderson.
