$31M Refi Earmarked for Baton Rouge Apartments

River House Apartments

Developers Emanuel Organek and Marc Blumberg have received a $30.5 million loan to refinance the River House Apartments, a new 224-unit apartment community in Baton Rouge, La.

Eyzenberg & Co.’s team of David Eyzenberg and Anastasia Vladislavova arranged the Fannie Mae conventional multifamily loan with Hunt Real Estate Capital providing 75 percent LTV financing with a 10-year term.

“It was a newly constructed, heavily amenitized Class A property with close to 100 percent occupancy at closing,” David Eyzenberg, Eyzenberg & Co.’s president, told MHN. “There was core demand for the producte in the market and there was an attractive loan amount size.”

Located at 1408 Nicholson Dr., just a half mile from Baton Rouge, River House offers one- and two-bedroom units with resort-style amenities such as a pool, fitness area, co-working space, outdoor cooking areas, a dog park and private garages.

Blumberg and Organek acquired the site in 2003 and started work on the live-work-play community in 2015. 

A Bigger Community

River House Apartments is part of a master planned development that includes 16,000 square feet of retail and 32,000 square feet of offices within a gated community next to the 35-acre Water Campus, a research park on the Mississippi riverfront dedicated to the study of coastal restoration and sustainability.

“It’s also very close to Louisiana State University and has good proximity to good drivers of employment,” Eyzenberg said. “They built a really nice product and the fact that it has above-market occupancy I think is testament to that.”

According to Eyzenberg, the company was happy to secure such favorable terms for the developer while delaying closing to enable the property to achieve required occupancy and avoid a pre-payment penalty.

“There was quite a bit of interest from the lending community,” he said. “They were effectively taking out a bridge loan; the property is fully stabilized and this is a 10-year deal.”

In June, Eyzenberg & Co. arranged a $14.4 million bridge loan for a joint venture of Blue Magma Residential LLC and Auerbach Opportunity Fund I LP to acquire Hillside Village and Twickenham Village, two neighboring garden apartment rental communities in Huntsville, Ala.

Image courtesy of Eyzenberg & Co.