TODAY’S DEALS: Medical Jobs Lure Audubon to Worcester

Worcester, Mass.—Close proximity to a host of medical employers has Audubon Capital Partners happy to add a 330-unit community to its portfolio. The firm picked up Plantation Ridge from TGM Associates. CBRE/NE represented both parties in the transaction. Audubon has had a busy June.

The 2004-built market rate community features three, five-story steel and concrete buildings at 551 Plantation Street, about three miles from downtown Worecester, Ma. While the sales price was not disclosed, TGM shelled out $60.5 million when it acquired the community from Heitman back in March of 2008, according to Yardi Matrix data.

Plantation Ridge sits less than a half mile from the UMass Memorial Medical Center, UMass Medical School, Worcester Recovery Center & Hospital, Notre Dame Healthcare and Beaumont Rehabilitation & Skilled Nursing Center, as well as the biotech firms Abbot Laboratories, Athena Diagnostics, Agilux Laboratories, Microbiotix and the one million-square-foot Massachusetts Biotechnology Research Park.

Amenities include a community center, business center, pool and fitness center.

Equus Capital Partners picks up institutionally owned asset

Shadow Creek Apartments

Winter Springs, Fla.—ARA, a Newmark Company announced the disposition of Shadow Creek Apartments, a 280-unit, Class A community located in the prestigious Orlando suburb of Winter Springs. The asset was 95 percent occupied at the time of the sale.

The ARA Newmark team of Executive Managing Directors Kevin Judd and Patrick Dufour, Associate Scott Ramey and Vice Chairmen Marc deBaptiste and Richard Donnellan exclusively represented the undisclosed institutional seller in the transaction. According to Judd, “Shadow Creek has been institutionally owned for the last 10 years and with unit interiors still mostly original, the new owner has an excellent opportunity to complete a full interior renovation and significantly increase value. There are limited opportunities to acquire early 2000s product in Orlando, and this sale is a great example of investors pursuing a quality asset in a strong location that has tremendous upside potential.”

Drawn to the property’s upscale location, large unit sizes and top-of-the-market amenity package, Philadelphia -based Equus Capital Partners purchased the property for an undisclosed price. They currently have approximately $4 billion in real estate assets under management and approximately $3 billion in equity raised.

Shadow Creek is located just four miles west of State Road 417 in the thriving submarket of Winter Springs, Fla. Known for its affluence, this area maintains household incomes that are more than 26 percent higher than the overall MSA and a phenomenal public school system with all “A” rated schools. Forbes Magazine ranked Orlando as the “#1 City in the Country for Job Growth” in 2014, and Shadow Creek’s residents directly benefit from this through convenient access to all of the city’s major employment centers, including the Lake Mary office submarket, University of Central Florida, downtown Orlando and Lake Nona.

Constructed in 2000 and sitting adjacent to a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, numerous restaurants and retails stores, including Publix, The Fresh Market, Panera Bread and Starbucks, Shadow Creek offers residents rare walkability for a suburban location. The community boasts an impressive amenity package that includes indoor air-conditioned basketball and racquetball courts, a large sauna, a movie theater room with stadium seating and a huge, resort-style pool and summer kitchen that overlook the property’s lake. Shadow Creek also has some of the largest interiors in the submarket, with an average size of 1,120 square feet.

“With unmatched amenity space, an abundance of tandem length garages and some of the largest unit interiors in the submarket, Shadow Creek is a true Class A asset that is located in a strong submarket within Orlando,” noted Ramey.