Irvine-based Avanath Capital Management LLC owns and operates about 9,500 apartments nationwide, including one of the country’s larger collection of affordable-housing complexes.
None are locally-based—at least not yet. The first project in the company’s backyard could be a few months away, according to founder and Chief Executive Daryl Carter.
“In 12 years of business we are finally close to acquiring our first Orange County asset,” Carter told the Business Journal last week.
Without providing specifics about the property, he said that a negotiating agreement was likely to close within the next 45 days.
“There is a huge need for affordable housing in Orange County, but there is also very aggressive bidding for them,” said Carter, whose firm has some properties not too far away, in areas like Long Beach, Ontario and Carlsbad.
The OC potential comes as Avanath recently launched a new business line—Avanath Development LLC—to develop or renovate properties, including some it already owns, using Opportunity Zones, an initiative that was added to the tax code as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The zones are designed to spur economic development in underserved communities by providing tax benefits to investors.
Four projects totaling about $250 million are currently in the pipeline under the Avanath Development umbrella, in Detroit, Florida, North Carolina and the Inland Empire.
The Opportunity Zone fund has “the potential to evolve into a $1 billion enterprise over the next five years,” the company said.
In 2018, Avanath acquired 11 properties for nearly $400 million, and added 1,819 units to its property management portfolio.
Shopoff Sells
Irvine-based real estate investor Shopoff Realty Investments has sold a Las Vegas apartment complex at a 38% premium to what it paid three years ago.
The 624-unit Point at Centennial, a complex in the northwest area of the city, near the intersection of the (95) and (215) freeways, sold to Las Vegas-based Calida Group for $100 million, or about $160,000 per unit.
Shopoff purchased the property in 2016 from another Irvine-based apartment investor, the Bascom Group, for $72.6 million. It subsequently made capital improvements to the property’s public spaces and half of the complex’s units, it said in a statement.
Units that got updates have seen rental increases in the 20% range, according to Shopoff, which closer to home is moving ahead with construction on its Uptown Newport community near the Newport Beach-Irvine city line.
CubeWorks Expansion
Last week’s issue of the Business Journal included a story on the first OC location for CubeWorks, an L.A.-based provider of flexible warehouse space—a WeWork for industrial tenants.
In addition to the nearly 300,000-square-foot Irvine site at 2323 Main St., the company’s website added a trio of new OC locations to its website just prior to our story going to press.
The additional locations include:
• 1540 S. Page Court, a nearly 200,000-square-foot facility in Anaheim just north of the Platinum Triangle
• 540 S. Melrose St., a roughly 65,000-square-foot building in Placentia
• An undisclosed location along Chapman Avenue in Garden Grove that’s expected to open in May
Brokers with Voit Real Estate Services have been handling leasing for the Anaheim and Placentia buildings, according to brokerage records.
