Trivest Wins Archon's Nod on $18M-Plus Deal for Fort Worth Complex

Archon, as the industry is well aware, has been divesting itself of multifamily assets, using a CB Richard Ellis Inc. team from Atlanta to hawk the holdings. Trivest partner John Kinzer, who exited the Dallas-based Archon well over a year ago, started dickering for the asset when it hit the "to go" list. Archon owned Cameron Creek for three years.

Cameron Creek is headed for a renovation, rent hike and repositioning--all in line with Trivest's strategy. Cameron Creek was 96% occupied at sale time, Kinzer tells GlobeSt.com. Cameron Creek at 5209 Bryant Irvin Rd. is a 36-building complex positioned on 20 acres developed by A.G. Spanos in 1985.

Key to the complex's appeal is its positioning to the Lockheed Martin plant, where 1,200 jobs are coming online to crank out Joint Strike Fighters. And making the most of that market advantage, says Kinzer, is at the root of the repositioning drive. The average rent per unit is 79 cents per sf. "We're hoping to take it up to 86 cents per sf," he confides. "It shouldn't be that difficult."

Of course, the repositioning means an investment on Trivest's part. Roughly $800,000 will be put into painting, washers and dryers for units, carports and the like. The work, as usual, got started by an in-house crew as soon as the acquisition papers were signed. Work will wrap up in December.

Trivest and its investor competitors are tapping a reservoir of vintage properties "that offer consistent returns at higher capitalization rates," says a Marcus & Millichap research team in a just-released study on the region's apartment market. The DFW's average monthly rental now stands at $720 and it's rising due in part to more class A product. Decreasing margins and lower cap rates in the class A segment has many investors eyeing and buying class B and C because they offer cap rates above 9% and more stable occupancies, the report concludes.