What Attracted Canyon Partners to South Florida?

By Jeffrey Steele, Contributing Editor

Los Angeles—The Palm Islands Apartments in Pompano Beach, Fla., has been acquired by Los Angeles, Calif.-based Canyon Partners Real Estate LLC, through its Canyon Multifamily Impact Fund (CMIF). The acquisition of the property marks the initial foray for CMIF into the South Florida marketplace.

Located in northern Broward County, the Palm Islands Apartments is a 402-unit property consisting of a dozen two-story buildings totaling 286,000 square feet. Typical of properties acquired by CMIF, it is high-quality workforce housing in a market underserved by such housing. The fund owns six properties with a total of almost 2,800 units in Illinois, California and now South Florida.

An innovative joint venture between Canyon Partners Real Estate and Citi Community Capital, CMIF promotes meaningful, long-term neighborhood impact by investing in multifamily properties as an active owner.

“The property is situated in a desirable, transit-oriented location in Pompano Beach and provides residents convenient access to employment, retail, education and healthcare facilities,” Canyon Partners said. “The Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach submarket is one of the largest multifamily submarkets in the Fort Lauderdale metro area and CMIF’s investment in this market will help to raise the quality of housing for the local workforce. In addition, the ability to provide special programing focused on education, healthcare, and sustainability, which improves the lives of the residents, is a key goal of the Canyon Multifamily Impact Fund. We were able to obtain this opportunity in an off-market transaction.”

A capital improvement plan at the Palm Island Apartments is planned by CMIF. Several million dollars will be invested in physical upgrades, as well as in quality-of-life-enriching community programming and services focused on education, health care, sustainability and security. Property management has been turned over to Monument Real Estate Services. Fund officials are scouring Miami-Dade and Broward Counties in search of additional investment opportunities.

“We are very pleased to include South Florida among the communities we are targeting with CMIF,” said Richard Gerwitz of Citi Community Capital. “We look forward to seeing the positive impact this investment will make on the lives of the residents.”