CHICAGO—Locally based CA Residential, the multifamily arm of global real estate investment firm CA Ventures, has launched an ambitious 5-year plan that will triple its portfolio to $3.2 billion by 2022. GlobeSt.com caught up with Bob Flannery, president of CA Residential, to hear more about what the company has in store for 2019 and beyond.

GlobeSt.com: 2019 begins your 5-year plan, with plans to double your portfolio from the current $1 billion. Can you walk us through the cliff-notes version of what's ahead for CA Residential?

Bob Flannery: 2019 is certainly a breakout year for us.

We are going to close $1 billion worth of new ground-up development in 2019.,so it's a mission-critical year. What we have been doing for the last 18 to 24 months is really putting everything in place to execute that plan. We've filled the pipeline with the right type of product and so 2019 is an unusually large year and we're very excited about it. And we're really ready to roll everything out this year, so we're in an awesome position. Going forward, we expect the annual pipeline to be $500 million a year, roughly split 50/50 between urban/downtown projects and a suburban strategy based on specific types of job growth and affordability.

GlobeSt.com: What would you say are the key elements that helped form the 5-year plan?

Bob Flannery: A couple of key components to our 5-year plan and hitting that $3.2 billion is a combination of us solidifying and being successful with our institutional partnerships, while being disciplined about the demographic data and embracing technology. You just can't do things the way you used to do them. We are committed to constantly re-thinking how we are executing, whether that means co-living, or whether that means corporate apartments, or whether that means smaller units, or different amenities, or new technology or apps. We think that it's a combination of strong institutional partnerships, reputation and track record, extremely disciplined demographic data points and, finally, innovation. For us, it is easy because it is really the DNA of CA Ventures.

We are big believers in long-term programmatic relationships and developing assets that we can hold for the long term in our portfolio. Rather than just churning and doing a merchant build, our goal is to build assets that not only create value but add value with partners that want to be in for the long return versus the short return.

The second part of what makes that strategy achievable is that we are not just building one single product. We're really diversifying our portfolio both geographically but also by product type. We have historically built core, urban/downtown, high-rise type product and we will continue to build that type of product as the opportunities arise.

But, simultaneously, what we have been focusing on for the last 12 months, and what we have a high focus on going forward, is developing suburban, garden-style product that is a new-construction, highly amenitized, well-designed product that is still affordable to what we call the gray-collar workforce. Gray-collar housing is centered around jobs that are more resilient to any type of recessionary pressure and designed to be more affordable. So, if you are in an area where the average person is making $70,000 a year, we want to make sure that we are providing a rental option that's desirable, that's new, that's convenient but that also works for their budget.

GlobeSt.com: How many projects can we expect to see this year?

Bob Flannery: I expect us to close 12 deals this year. We already closed on one in Nashville, and we expect that to be followed by Denver and then Minneapolis – all core urban downtown products. Those will be followed by Atlanta – we have two deals there, one in Buckhead and one in Midtown. For the gray-collar suburban projects, we have three deals under contract that are in Seattle, Denver and East Bay, California.

GlobeSt.com: Your new Chicago project, which opened in May 2018, was 95% leased by December. To what do you attribute this high occupancy rate?

Bob Flannery: I like to think it is because we spend the time to do a deeper dive not only on the demographics but also on the lifestyle.

When we start to study a market, in addition to just our acquisitions and development team going out, we have Caliber (CA Residential's in-house specialty leasing group) assist as they really think like a consumer, more like a market research firm than a real estate firm. They come back armed with data about lifestyle and quality of life and how people spend their days, and whether people are working from home. We factor all of that data into the type of units and amenities we build.

What we've found in a lot of these urban markets is building more efficient units helps to keep the monthly rent in line. But just as important is building a product where the residents really feel the amenity space is an extension of their living room. If we lease someone an apartment that is 650 square feet, we want them to feel like they are getting an extra 50 square feet with that apartment, and they really do because they have access to co-working facilities; they have access to a health club; they have access to the equivalent of a family room and dining room and hangout space. We put a lot of pod areas in our buildings where people can gather.

When people see that value, I believe that gives us a competitive advantage. It has been really interesting to watch how people react to that. When people feel like they are getting an extra 50 feet included with their apartment, they are able to quickly say, “Wow. This is a value because not only is my rent a little lower, but I'm able to drop my co-working space lease. I can drop my health club membership. And I can get rid of my car because the building is located in the right location. So, I've just reduced my monthly overhead by $300 or $400.”

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CA Residential To Triple Portfolio To $3B by 2022

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