ATHENS, GA-College Park Communities, the student housing division of Newtown Square, PA-based GMH Communities Trust, has closed on its fourth campus shelter asset this year. GMH did more than $500 million in student housing acquisitions in 2005, a company representative tells GlobeSt.com.

The GMH division paid $12.9 million, or $107,500 per unit and $26,875 per bed, for the 120-unit, 480-bed Aspen Apartments here near the University of Georgia campus. In the deal, College Park Communities assumed a $10.5-million, 4.4% mortgage loan that matures in April 2009.

"Aspen is yet another example of a strategically located asset that contains the type of high-quality amenities consistent with our student lifestyle program, and that serves a university with significant enrollment growth potential," says Miles H. Orth, executive vice president of the company's student housing division.

Orth says the Aspen acquisition brings the GMH student housing portfolio to 58 properties comprising 10,892 units and 35,642 beds. The 16 two-story, townhome-styled Aspen Apartments community was built in 1988 and renovated in 2001. The 27.9-acre property is one mile from University of Georgia's campus.

In three other January deals, GMH paid $20.1 million on Jan. 17 for the 250-unit Royal Riverwood Manor comprising 25 two-story buildings in Sacramento, near California State University; $6.8 million on Jan. 18 for the 42-unit, 162-bed Jacob Heights property in Mankato, MN near the University of Minnesota's main campus; and $18.6 million on Jan. 19 for the 252-unit, 792-bed University Commons Norman asset serving the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK.