Berkadia Arranges $47M In Atlanta, San Diego

Berkadia, New York, arranged nearly $50 million for an Atlanta office portfolio and a San Diego senior housing community. 

Berkadia secured $36.7 million for the Sterling Pointe I and II Class A office portfolio in Atlanta, which serves as headquarters for Mercedes-Benz USA. A joint venture of Harbert United States Real Estate Fund V, Birmingham, Ala., and The Simpson Organization, Atlanta, closed on the property on August 20th. 

Sterling Pointe I and II includes 350,000 rentable square feet less than two miles from the Dunwoody MARTA subway station. The Central Perimeter submarket is seeing rising rental rates and increasing occupancy and the Atlanta area reached a new employment peak in the first quarter with the second-fastest job growth rate in the United States. 

TJ Ownby, senior managing director in Berkadia’s Tampa, Fla. office, secured the financing through a regional bank.  Berkadia’s Pasadena, Calif., office closed a $10 million loan for Grace Tower, an affordable seniors housing property in San Diego. Senior Director Mike Kulick arranged the 40-year fixed-rate loan through HUD’s Section 221(d)(4) program. HUD provided Grace Tower with a 20-year term of senior preservation rental funding. Borrower Grace Tower Inc. will use the construction financing to substantially rehabilitate the asset over the next 12 months.  

Berkadia also represented Arnada Pointe Investors LP, Vancouver, Wash., when it sold Arnada Pointe Apartments, a 200-unit Vancouver property, for $28.1 million. Managing Director Phil Oester and Director Joe Nydahl closed the sale on August 21.  

Strata Equity Fund LLC San Diego, purchased the asset for $140,500 per unit.  “This out-of-state buyer was looking to expand their apartment holdings in the Pacific Northwest, and Arnada Pointe was their first Portland metro area investment,” Oester said. “The size, location and condition of the property made it a nice fit for the buyers’ long-term hold strategy.” Oester said more than 30 high-tech businesses call the area home.

“The core area of downtown Vancouver is designated by the State of Washington as an Innovation Partnership Zone for applied digital technology accelerator.”Portland-Vancouver metro area vacancy fell to 3.5 percent in the second quarter, the lowest rate in five years. Halfway into 2015, the average asking rent price increased 9.1 percent year-over-year to an average of $1,250 per month.