HighBridge to Develop 708-Bed Community Near UC Davis

By Adina Marcut

Rendering of Lincoln40

HighBridge Properties has received construction approval for Lincoln40, a 708-bed student housing community in Davis, Calif. Patrick Burger, senior director of HFF’s San Diego office, will secure construction equity and debt financing for the project, slated for completion in 2020. The company acquired the Davis infill site back in 2015. 

The 130-unit property will be situated on approximately six acres along Olive Drive, near the intersection with Richards Boulevard and close to Davis’s downtown business district. Additionally, the community will serve students attending the University of California, Davis situated less than a mile away. The three-story building will offer three-, four- and five-bedroom units and will include property amenities such as:

• private study areas
• fitness center
• game room
• café lounge
• outdoor swimming pool
• barbecue stations
• gas fire pits
• bike storage

Rental assistance program

The project is designed to achieve LEED Gold equivalency for energy efficiency and other green-building features such as rooftop solar panels, electric vehicle charging stations and submetering on each unit. Lincoln40 will offer LincolnLift, a student rental assistance program set to reduce monthly rents for students with a budget of up to 60 percent of the local area’s median household income. 

“Redeveloping this underutilized property will provide much-needed relief to a supply-stressed market at a crucial time,” Paul Gradeff, managing director of HighBridge Properties, said in prepared remarks. “Davis’s rental market is in such crisis that students are renting couches or are even homeless.”

When HighBridge purchased the site, it consisted of seven single-family homes, three uninhabitable cottages built in the 1940s and 50s and a 14-key motel.

Rendering courtesy of HighBridge Properties