Austin Student Housing Trades for $46.7M

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor

Austin, Texas—Crescent Resources has sold Circle West Campus for $46.77 million to an undisclosed buyer. The property is a student apartment building with 176 units and 476 beds that opened in August near the University of Texas. It’s 100 percent leased.

Circle West Campus includes a mix of studios, one-, two- and four-bedroom apartments. The 1.6-acre property is within walking distance of the UT campus and was built to meet the requirements of the Austin Energy Green Building Multifamily rating. Individual apartments include Energy Star appliances.

As increasingly common in the formerly austere world of student housing, the new property has a great many amenities. Circle West Campus has a resort-style pool, tanning beds, and a community study cafe and lounge. The recreation room includes televisions and interactive gaming systems, a pool table and a poker table. Student residents also have access to covered parking and a community grilling area.

The Austin sale represents the second property Crescent has sold in 2012. In June, the company sold Circle at South End in Charlotte for $74 million. With 360 units and 8,000 square feet of retail space, that property traded for about $205,500 per unit, which Crescent says is a record for an apartment property in North Carolina.

Crescent is currently developing Circle Bayshore and Circle Crosstown in Tampa; Gallery at Cameron Village in Raleigh; Circle Ninth Street in Durham; and Circle SouthPark in Charlotte. Crescent’s planned multifamily properties include Circle Alexander Village in Charlotte and Circle Terminus in Atlanta, as well as three other developments for which construction is slated to start shortly.