Harrison Street, Core Spaces Team Up for $1.5B BTR Venture

The current pipeline includes 6,500 units.

Image by 3d-Guru/iStockphoto.com

Harrison Street and Core Spaces have launched a $1.5 billion venture for the acquisition and development of single-family build-to-rent properties. The partnership will focus on purpose-built communities in high-growth suburban markets across the country.

The joint venture’s current BTR pipeline represents roughly $2.5 billion in total capital and includes 6,500 units in Austin, Denver, Dallas, Orlando and Nashville. The pandemic has accelerated an already growing demand for single-family BTR communities and companies are keeping up.

Investment management company Harrison Street, which focuses exclusively on alternative real assets, recognized the potential of the rapidly expanding BTR market, driven by the current demographics, Christopher Merrill, Harrison Street’s co-founder, chairman & CEO, said in a prepared statement. At the time of the announcement, the joint venture had nine BTR developments in different stages of development. The duo also has a history of investing in student housing assets across the U.S.

Joining forces

Core Spaces, a residential developer, owner and operator, already owns a BTR platform, which launched in 2020. The firm currently owns and/or manages 37 properties across the country, amounting to more than 16,000 units and beds—with a significant student housing component. In a 2021 interview with Multi-Housing News, John Wieker, executive managing director & CIO of Core Spaces discussed the firm’s business strategy and the student housing segment’s allure since the onset of the pandemic.

In October, Harrison Street announced that it raised more than $2.5 billion for its latest U.S. opportunistic real estate fund, translating to more than $8 billion in buying capacity. The company also closed Harrison Street Real Estate Partners VIII L.P., the largest closed-end fund in the firm’s history, at its hard cap of $2 billion.