Archstone Partnership Buys Green Apartments in Venice, Calif., for $56M

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Courtesy of livefrankly.com

A partnership sponsored by Archstone, of Englewood, Colo., has purchased The Frank, an upscale 70-unit apartment complex in Venice, Calif., for $56.2 million, Archstone announced late last week. The LEED Platinum–certified complex has been renamed Archstone Venice on Rose.

“Archstone Venice on Rose is located in a highly desirable neighborhood with expensive single-family homes and very limited land on which to build new housing,” said Charles E. Mueller Jr., Archstone’s president & CEO. Archstone declined to release further details on the transaction.

Archstone emphasized the complex’s proximity to major Silicon Beach tech employers such as Hulu, Viddy, Yahoo and Google and its easy access to West L.A. employers like Lions Gate Films, Sony Entertainment, Microsoft and MTV.

The 220,000-square-foot property, which includes 9,800 square feet of retail/restaurants, consists of a mix of one- and two-bedroom and town-home units. It was developed by Gerding Edlen, Portland, Ore., and completed earlier this year.

Amenities include a resident lounge with full kitchen and media center, dog run, community garden and a parking garage. The apartments feature 11-foot ceilings, stone countertops, kitchen islands, designer cabinets, stainless-steel appliances and upgraded fixtures.

The Frank was the first completed project in the portfolio of buildings being developed through Gerding Edlen’s Green Cities I fund, with properties in Southern California, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston.

Sustainable/eco-conscious features include high-efficiency heat pumps, boilers and light fixtures; a solar hot water system that will meet 70 percent of the building’s annual demand; low-flow water fixtures; an energy-efficient façade; local and recycled materials; nontoxic finishes; and 100 percent drought-tolerant landscaping. Overall, the complex’s energy consumption is estimated at one-third less than a typical building.

The current multi-family vacancy rate in the Marina del Rey/Venice/Westchester submarket is 4.6 percent, down 220 basis points from a year prior, according to a third-quarter 2012 report from Marcus & Millichap. Average effective rents are reportedly a hefty $2,046, up 5.6 percent year-over-year.

“Healthy private-sector job growth and a wavering single-family housing market” in Los Angeles County, the report predicts, will bolster the apartment market through year’s end. Vacancies are expected to fall and rents to rise, though the report cautions that “projected completions may overshadow demand in the coming months.”