RESIDENTIAL
KBS Realty Advisors has another non-traded real estate investment trust in the works.
The Newport Beach-based real estate investment company, which has been one of the most active buyers of commercial real estate during the downturn, largely through a pair of billion-dollar REITs that it runs, last month filed initial paperwork for another REIT that will focus on apartment acquisitions.
The latest investment venture, called KBS Legacy Apartment Community REIT Inc., hopes to raise as much as $2.8 billion in the blind-pool offering.
KBS Legacy said it plans to buy apartment complexes throughout the U.S. Its portfolio is expected to focus on core apartment buildings that are well positioned and producing rental income.
It also will look at buildings that can improve cash flow, according to KBS Legacy’s registration statement.
It’ll be the second big apartment-focused REIT based in Orange County.
Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co. launched a similar REIT in early 2006. That offering,Grubb & Ellis Apartment REIT Inc. ,had raised about $160 million through July.
Unlike previous offerings that its company started up in the past few years, KBS isn’t working solo this go-around. It’s partnering with the residential arm of Foster City-based Legacy Partners Inc.
Legacy Partners’ apartment division owns properties in six states, including about 50 complexes in California. It will be responsible for finding properties for the new REIT to buy, and it will perform asset management services.
A capital advisory division of KBS will be responsible for managing day-to-day operations of the REIT and will identify potential investments.
A timeframe for when the new venture hopes to kick off has not been disclosed.
Two KBS-overseen REITs that focus on office properties have raised about $2.4 billion during the past two years.
In late August, the second of those two offerings, KBS Real Estate Investment Trust II, closed on a $112 million acquisition of a 570,038-square-foot office complex in Fairfax, Va.
A registration statement for a fourth KBS-sponsored REIT that will target loans on commercial properties, called KBS Strategic Opportunity REIT Inc., was filed
with the Securities and Exchange Commission in January.
That $2 billion REIT has yet to be declared effective by the SEC.
Monterey Auction
A $145 million project in Monterey County that Newport Beach-based William Lyon Homes Inc. was involved in is slated to be sold this week at auction.
The East Garrison project, a 244-acre mixed-use development in bluffs above the Salinas Valley, was foreclosed on in March.
Project developers,which included William Lyon Homes, as well as Woodman Development Co. and Urban Community Partners LLC, both of Monterey,were said to be in default on $62 million of their loan agreement.
As of last week, a trustee’s sale on the development was scheduled for Sept. 8, according to the Monterey County Herald.
The project reportedly was designed to include 1,400 homes built around a town center with a 75,000-square-foot shopping center. A good chunk of the project’s grading had been completed, but construction work stopped about a year ago, according to local reports.
COMMERCIAL
Houston-based developer Hines Interests LP has named its new head of operations for OC.
The company appointed Paul Twardowski, vice president and partner, to head the company’s local investment and development office.
He replaces Doug Holte, who last month joined Newport Beach-based Irvine Company as president of its office division.
Twardowski, an 11-year veteran with Hines, also will continue to oversee the company’s investments in San Diego, according to the company.
Autism Fundraiser
Barry Saywitz, president of Newport Beach-based real estate brokerage Saywitz Co., is hosting the second-annual “An Evening for Autism” event at his home in the Belcourt neighborhood of Newport Beach on Saturday.
Tickets for the event are $150 per person. More information can be found at aneveningforautism.org.
Among other charities, proceeds from the event will benefit Newport Mesa School District’s autism programs. Last year’s event raised more than $200,000. Saywitz said he’s hoping to exceed that figure this year at the tropical-themed event.
