DALLAS-Fairfield Residential LLC has grabbed control of a full-city block in a heavily contested race for a 332-unit complex destined for the wrecking ball. Mixed-use space is the most likely replacement product, but it will be a few years before work can begin.
The hot ticket is the 37-building Signature Pointe at 5936 E. Lovers Lane, which has 940 feet of frontage along Lovers Lane and street access on all four sides to a 12.86-acre tract in North Dallas. The Cushman & Wakefield team of senior director Don Ostroff and associates Lamont Rattler and Jason Boyce along with former teammate Will Balthrope, now with Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Co., were running the deal as a land play with a sticker price of $22.5 million. Other local brokers say the winner paid close to the ask.
"Ultimately, it's a redevelopment play for us," Scott Sherwood, vice president of development for the San Diego- and Grand Prairie-based Fairfield Residential. "Right now, we're focused on bringing the NOI up." Signature Pointe was 90% occupied at sale time, but the goal is to burn off concessions to gain on the effective rent side of the equation until all pieces fall into place for the redevelopment, which Sherwood estimates could take two, three or even five years to start and complete.
Sherwood says the Fairfield team is just beginning to weigh its prospects for the infill site. "It's an incredible location," he says. "We love, love, love the real estate." Mixed use is practically a certainty, but the name, number or units or complementary space is still unknown--as is the timeframe for submitting a plan to the city.
Sherwood says it's business as usual for the operations of the class B-minus complex, built in 1973 and renovated in 1996. The one-, two- and three-bedroom units range from 490 sf to 1,573 sf and rents are $645 to $1,427 per month.
Ostroff says 17 other would-be buyers, mostly local, were trying to claim the deed from joint venture partners, Transwestern Investment Co. of Chicago and Stellar Management Co. "Ninety percent of the offers we received because of the extremely high value and location of the property was from developers who planned to scrape, raze and redevelop with new residential or mixed use. It was all about the land." And the developers in the chase were "an excellent Who's Who of who made offers on the property," he says.
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