Equity Buys 263-Unit Providence at Kirby

HOUSTON-Chicago’s Equity Residential has outbid a dozen others lined up for the 263-unit Providence at Kirby, the latest Houston listing of Atlanta-based developer Trammell Crow Residential. The holding came to market at an asking price of $29 million.

Trammell Crow Residential, a merchant builder of high-end product, brought the property to market as soon as it was stabilized. The Providence at Kirby, situated at 7550 Kirby Dr. in the city’s Medical Center district, was 94% leased at sale time. The property took 60 days to sell, G. Craig LaFollette, senior vice president in Houston for CB Richard Ellis Inc., tells GlobeSt.com. The CBRE sales team, which handled both sides of the transaction. also included J. Todd Stewart, senior vice president, and Todd Marix, first vice president.

LaFollette says the Providence, built in 1999, is the typical Trammell Crow product–well built. The average unit size is 876 sf; the average rental is $1.25 per sf or $1,095 per month plus water. According to Harris County Appraisal District, the apartment complex carried a $19-million assessment for 2002.

Equity Residential owns an abutting 362-unit complex so the buyer has a good idea of how the Providence at Kirby will perform and will achieve economies of scale between the two complexes, says LaFollette.

The property’s location in the city’s top apartment market helped sell the project, LaFollette adds. The submarket’s barriers to entry such as soaring land prices and land scarcity in the immediate area drove a selling price for less than the replacement cost, he confides.