Meta Buys Broken Condos for Seniors Apartments

TUSTIN, CA-Meta Housing Corp. of Los Angeles has acquired nine acres and an existing 24-unit unoccupied residential building on a site that was originally approved for 240 senior condos in a project called Coventry Court that the Los Angeles-based company will now develop as apartments for seniors. Shaun Bradley, director of acquisitions for Meta Housing, tells GlobeSt.com that the company bought the property on an all-cash basis from Tustin Coventry LLC in a direct deal between buyer and seller.

Meta Housing expects to begin construction of the remaining units by January and will complete the project in phases. The company expects to begin preleasing of the units by the end of the second quarter of next year, with the first residents expected to move in during the third quarter.

The 240 units, in 10 buildings of three stories each, will be a mixed-income project with rents that will range from low-income to market-rate. Bradley says that Meta anticipates that the rents will average about $1.65 per square foot overall―a figure that takes into account both the affordable and the market-rate rents. The units will range from just under 700 square feet to about 1,700 square feet and will all be one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The site is on the former Tustin Marine Corp Air Station and part of the Villages of Columbus master-planned Community. Meta's acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed, follows the City of Tustin's approval in July of a change that permits the units to be operated as apartments rather than sold as condos as the original developer had planned.

Bradley tells GlobeSt.com that the conversion to apartments rather than condos is the only change in the project, which Meta Housing will otherwise develop entirely as originally planned. Meta Housing has retained William Hezmalhalch Architects Inc., which was the original architect for the project. In addition to the residential units, it will feature a clubhouse, a swimming pool and pool house, a spa, a community room, a kitchen and other amenities.