STATESBORO, GA-Banking on the fast-growing student population at Georgia Southern University here, Los Angeles-based Lowe Enterprises Investors and partners Chicago-based Blue Vista Sponsor Equity Fund and Bethesda, MD-based Realty Capital Co. have purchased Bermuda Run Apartments for an investment client.

A Lowe Enterprises representative tells GlobeSt.com the partners declined to disclose the purchase price or the corporate name of the private seller. However, area multifamily brokers familiar with the Statesboro student housing market tell GlobeSt.com the purchase price was probably in the $36,000-per-bed category. That would place the estimated value of the deal at about $20 million, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

The 14-acre, 16-building Bermuda Run has 165 units with 533 beds. Bleecker P. Seaman, managing director, Lowe Enterprises, says the property is leased by the bed rather than by the unit "so students have responsibility for their own rooms while sharing other living space." The units have two to four bedrooms and are sized from 766 sf to 1,230 sf with a private bathroom for each bedroom.

Atlanta-based Place Properties will manage the property. In November 2005, Place acquired 458 student housing properties with 1,535 beds in Indiana, Illinois and Texas for $56 million, or $36,482 per bed and $122,271 per apartment, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. Place's partners in that deal were Blue Vista Sponsor Equity Fund and Boston-based Fidelity Real Estate Group. Houston-based Dinnerstein Cos. was the seller.

The Bermuda Run deal brings Lowe Enterprises' portfolio to 1,462 units totaling 4,671 beds in Florida, Texas, Minnesota and Georgia, according to Seaman.