JV Buys Coney Island Apartment Complex for $150M
Tredway, Gilbane, ELH partner on 816-unit Sea Park complex.
Arker Companies has sold for $150M its Sea Park housing portfolio in Coney Island, including three multifamily buildings encompassing 961K SF and 816 units, to a partnership that is pledging to expand the number of affordable units in the portfolio.
Tredway, Gilbane Development and ELH Management purchased the Sea Park complex, with Berkadia and Deutsche Bank providing financing for the transaction. Ariel Property Advisors represented the seller.
The complex, located at 2930 W. 30th Street. a block away from the beach, includes Sea Park North, Sea Park West and Sea Park East. Will Blodgett, Tredway’s CEO, told TheRealDeal that all of the units at the Sea Park complex will be “reserved as affordable for the next 60 years.”
Existing tenants will keep their housing, but new rules will apply for future applications, Blodgett said, with about 600 apartments reserved for households earning up to 60% of the area median income; 150 units will go to households earning 50% percent of AMI; 75 units will be reserved for useholds earning up to 80% of AMI.
A 145K SF site adjacent to Sea Park North, part of the deal, is slated for the development of 250 new units of affordable senior housing. The parcel is currently a parking lot.
In November, real estate investment trust iStar filed plans to build a 23-story, 282-unit apartment tower next to the Coney Island Amphitheater a block from the beach.
The new multifamily on the boardwalk isn’t iStar’s first venture at Brooklyn’s barrier island beach. iStar build the 5,000-seat amphitheater in 2016 in a partnership with NYC’s Economic Development Corp. and ticketing service LiveNation. iStar also converted the Child’s Building in Coney Island into a 135-unit housing projects.
The new apartment building will rise at 3027 West 21st Street on a site across the street from the amphitheater, currently occupied by a parking lot.
The REIT’s Coney Island projects were part of a sale-leaseback transaction with the NYEDC in which the city bought the land for $61M and leased it back to iStar.
In 2009, NYC rezoned 19 blocks in Coney Island as an amusement and entertainment district. Housing development in Coney Island has tripled in the decade since Superstorm Sandy decimated the area in 2012.
In November, Thor Equities announced a casino bid in partnership with Saratoga Casino Holdings and the Chicasaw Nation. The partners are proposing a beachfront casino in Coney Island that would feature a roller coaster that loops beneath the boardwalk, an indoor water park with glass walls and “multiple hotels and museums.”