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Vista Sands apartments purchase a record buy
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
The $31 million purchase of the 280-unit Vista Sands apartments in Summerville by an affiliate of investment giant J.P. Morgan in October marked the most ever paid for a Charleston-area apartment complex not slated for conversion to condominiums, said Don Evans of Charleston-based real estate company Evans, Rivers & Co., which along with Atlanta-based Engler Financial Group brokered the deal.
The $111,000-per-unit purchase could possibly be a South Carolina record, Evans added.
Unlike the wave of Lowcountry apartment complexes that have been purchased and flipped into for-sale condos over the past few years, the J.P. Morgan affiliate will keep Vista Sands an apartment community.
“They bought it as an investment,” Evans said.
He added that the apartment-to-condo-conversion craze has pretty much run its course and that the demand for rental units is strong.
Vista Sands, regarded as a class “A” apartment complex because of its newness and recreational amenities, was completed in 2005 and is 90% occupied. The apartment complex’s co-owners, Wood Partners LLC and Prudential Real Estate Investors, put Vista Sands on the market in May, Evans said.
The sellers were looking for at least $100,000 per unit. A handful of buyers, including a few who wanted to convert the apartment complex to condos, toured Vista Sands and by late July submitted their final offers, according to Evans.
The J.P. Morgan affiliate offered the highest price.
Aside from its physical attributes and its construction quality, what made Vista Sands an attractive buy was its location, virtually within walking distance of Azalea Square shopping center, part of Summerville’s thriving commercial sector, Evans said.
But desirable Vista Sands-type locations on which to build new apartments are becoming harder to find, Evans said.
Farmington Village, which is under construction, and The Tradition at Summerville, which was recently completed, are two other new apartment complexes near Summerville’s commercial district, Evans noted.
The Lowcountry’s continuing population and economic growth has put it on the national real estate investment radar, attracting the likes of New York-based J.P. Morgan, Evans pointed out.
“The Charleston market is a great one,” he said.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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