WASHINGTON, DC—One of the District's senior housing communities just traded hands as part of a larger portfolio. The Residences at Thomas Circle, located at 1330 Massachusetts Ave., NW, was part of a six-asset senior housing portfolio that a JV between the locally-based Carlyle Group and Capital Seniors Housing sold to a private fund. HFF's Ryan Maconachy, Chad Lavender and Gerry Rohm represented the JV in the trade of the 596-unit portfolio, which also includes properties in Southern California, Michigan and Philadelphia.

No purchase price was announced but the buyer was: Orlando, Fla.-based ROC Seniors Housing Fund Manager acquired the portfolio free of debt.

ROC Seniors is a fund manager for a family of private equity funds that focus on investments in seniors housing communities and healthcare properties. It is the subsidiary of the Salt Lake City, Utah-based Bridge Investment Group LLC, which manages a number of funds under the ROC brand including ROC multifamily, ROC commercial office and ROC debt. There are other funds too, such as Bridge Property Management and Bridge Realty Capital. Added up, they pack a major purchasing punch. In October of 2014, for example, Bridge Investment Group announced it would purchase more than $1 billion of multifamily and commercial office properties over the next two years.

ROC Seniors' Short But Busy Life

ROC Seniors has been very busy as well.

The fund is taking a value-add investment approach, seeking out assets that could benefit from incremental capital improvements or changing the resident mix -- such as adding memory care units -- or new marketing.

It launched in November of 2013 without any announcement but that changed in January of 2014 when Bridge Investment Group reported that it had completed its first close, raising $41 million in equity commitments for the fund. "This initial capital will enable us to close the acquisition of several properties we have under contract," Bridge Investment Group CEO Robert Morse said at the time.

Since then Bridge Investment Group Partners has provided periodic updates to show it is scaling up, both in terms of acquisitions and investors.

In September of 2014, Bridge Investment Group announced it had raised an additional $224 million in equity commitments. As of September 1, 2014, it also said, the fund had 14 facilities operating over 1,400 beds, either owned or under contract.

In January of this year, Bridge reported that it raised yet another round in equity commitments for the fund, this time $137 million. It also revealed that by the end of Q1 2015 it expected would have made $390 million in acquisitions including what it scooped up in 2014.

In July it announced it had raised $737 million in equity commitments and that "…fundraising was completed…" Bridge Investment Group also reported that the fund has 39 "high-quality" assets under contract.

The REITs Left Few Portfolios Standing in Healthcare

We know about a handful of them. There is The Residences at Thomas Circle, of course, and the other assets in that portfolio: Crown Cove in Corona Del Mar, CA; Raincross at Riverside in Riverside, CA; Whittier Place in Whittier, CA; Regent Street of West Bloomfield in West Bloomfield, MI; and Arbor Terrace at Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, PA.

There have been other portfolio deals as well, announced courtesy of HFF. In May of 2017, ROC Seniors acquired a 14-property seniors housing portfolio of 1,038 units located in California, Oklahoma, Ohio, Texas, West Virginia and North Carolina. The seller was a joint venture between private funds managed by Iron Point Partners and Meridian Senior Living. HFF brokered that transaction, representing the seller in this deal too.

An earlier deal was announced by the Dallas-based Stroud Development and Stroud Investments. It sold four assisted living and memory care communities in the Houston, Odessa and Austin, Texas markets to ROC Seniors for more than $70 million.

All in all, it is not a bad haul for a sector that has undergone major consolidation in recent years due to the multiple, major acquisitions by the REITs in this space, leaving one-off assets and smaller portfolio for other companies that also want to build up scale.