cypress real estate advisors to develop upscale apartment community in denver

via MILE HIGH CRE

By CRE | Published September 29, 2020

Cypress Real Estate Advisors (“CREA”) has received $67 million for the construction of The Cameron, an upscale apartment community located at 4545 E. Warren Ave. in Denver. The Cameron will be a five-story, 361-unit wrap property, consisting of 30 studio, 239 one-bedroom, and 92 two-bedroom apartments.

Led by Denver-based Principal Chase Hill and Development Associate Adam Wallace, CREA in partnership with Ben Hrouda of Flywheel Capital will develop The Cameron on 2.94 acres as the first of a two-phase build-out plan upon a larger 5.35-acre assemblage.

Located near the Colorado Station RTD light rail stop, community amenities will include a resort-style pool with cabanas and grilling stations, a two-story clubroom, courtyards, a state-of-the-art fitness center, a business café, and an eco-friendly recycling and waste reduction program.

With a population growth of 18 percent over the last decade, Denver’s multifamily market has remained stable throughout the pandemic, outperforming the national averages in both collections and occupancy.

JLL secured the five-year, floating-rate loan with Pacific Western Bank, led by Managing Director Campbell Roche and Senior Managing Director Eric Tupler.

“We are excited to see this unique project become a reality,” said Roche. “Chase Hill and the CREA Team have done a phenomenal job of delivering best-in-class projects on great sites including their CIVIC Lofts community downtown and The Alcott in Jefferson Park. The Cameron will be another successful project capitalizing on its proximity to Colorado Station.”

find out where 200 new townhomes are coming to Denver

via The Denver Post

By Joe Rubino | August 22, 2020

Demolition work is expected to get underway next week on a former Colorado Department of Transportation regional headquarters in southeast Denver, the first step in bringing 198 new homes to the area.

Arapahoe County-based builder Lokal Homes has been tapped to turn the former CDOT Region 1 complex into the Hub at Virginia Village, a collection of market-rate townhomes scheduled to rise on the property,  at 2000 S. Holly St. northeast of the Holly and East Evans Avenue intersection, over the next few years. It’s a rare infill housing development in a city where demand for for-sale homes seems only to have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re excited because we’re a local builder in the area,” Robyn Asbury, Lokal’s vice president of sales and marketing, said Friday. “It’s such a great location. We’re looking forward to creating a fun, liveable product that will fit in with in the neighborhood.”

If site work goes as planned Lokal will get started on its model homes in March, Asbury said, but the company doesn’t own the home sites yet.

Builder Capital, a Maryland company specializing in providing lot financing for home builders, partnered with investment firm 400 Capital Management to acquire the lots, according to a news release last week. The deal closed last month, Asbury said.

Builder Capital has a land banking agreement with Lokal and will sell the lots to the company in stages as development progresses, a strategy meant to keep pressure off of Lokal’s balance sheet and make it easier for the company to build homes at “attainable price points,” according to the news release. The three companies worked together last year on a land banking arrangement covering 425 lots spread across Aurora, Commerce City and Colorado Springs.

“Builder Capital is pleased to enhance its footprint in the western region of the U.S. with a great builder like Lokal Homes and is honored to be part of Lokal’s continual growth in the state of Colorado,” Bill Southworth, Builder’s managing director, said in a statement.

Before Builder Capital came into the picture, Denver developer Kentro Group acquired the property in early 2018 through a complicated, $19.3 million deal negotiated by city officials that also transferred CDOT’s now-former headquarters at 4201 E. Arkansas Ave. to Kentro. Kentro received City Council approval to develop a mixed-use project including 150 below-market apartments at the Arkansas Avenue property in December 2018.

Kentro is still the master plan developer for the South Holly site and is working with another group, McDermott Properties, to build a 63-unit affordable housing complex for seniors on the northern portion of the site, according to Kentro co-founder Jimmy Balafas. That project should break ground in fall 2021.

Kentro will share infrastructure expenses with Lokal, Balafas said.

“We selected Lokal as our partner because they are Denver natives, and they plan to build homes in an attainable price range, starting in the low ($400,000 range),” Balafas wrote in an email to The Denver Post.

City Councilman Paul Kashmann, whose District 6 includes both former CDOT properties, said Denver needs more housing for people at all income levels and he is looking forward to seeing more homes priced for working family built in Virginia Village. Real estate site Zillow pegs the median home value in the neighborhood today at more than $500,000.

“We’ve got all the $2,200-a-month studio apartments we need,” Kashmann said. “We need housing that allows people to begin building wealth for their family and security for their family.”