Miami investment firm enters Atlanta market with East Point apartment buy

April 3, 2019 – Atlanta Business Chronicle

SPECIAL

Redwine Creek Apartments.

A new investor has entered the Atlanta apartment market with its first acquisition in East Point.
An affiliate of Miami-based Bayshore Investment Partners LLC bought the second phase of the 175-unit Elevation 3505. Bayshore Investment paid $24.8 million for the East Point project, or $142,000 per unit.

The seller was Landmark CG (Phase 2) LLC, an affiliate of Atlantabased Stonemark Management LLC. Bayshore Investment Partners has rebranded the property Redwine Creek Apartments, said Jose Tello, principal and general partner at Bayshore Investment. It will be managed Cynergy Property Management LLC.

Redwine Creek Apartments, at 3505 Redwine Road, sits on 15 acres along Interstate 285. It’s also next to the 800,000-square-foot Camp Creek Marketplace retail center. The apartments are four miles from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The first phase of Elevation 3505 was built in 2006 and has 317 units. The current owner plans to sell this year, and Bayshore Investment will consider acquiring it, Tello said. “It makes sense from an efficiency standpoint,” he said. Bayshore Investment wants to expand into Southeast markets including Atlanta and Raleigh-Durham, Tello said. It targeted Atlanta for its growth, deal flow, and “dynamic” employment hub, he added. “It was the next market that made sense for us,” Tello said.

Bayshore Investment aims to acquire up to five properties and 1,000 units in Atlanta over the next three years, he said. It will also continue to look for acquisitions in Florida, where the company already has a 1,500-unit portfolio mainly in Orlando and Tampa.

In Atlanta, the company is most focused on the “martini glass” corridor between Interstates 75 and 85 for the area’s steady demand, rent increases and population growth, Tello said. Bayshore Investment is a cash-flow, longterm investor. It liked Elevation Phase 2 because 75% of its units had been refurbished by the previous owner, a value-add investor, Tello said. It will update the remaining 25% of Phase 2 units with new appliances, countertops, vinyl flooring and lighting fixtures as tenancy turns over organically.

East Point could be a good location for Bayshore Investment because of the area’s growth over the last 10 to 15 years. It’s 15 minutes from the airport, it has the amenities of Camp Creek Marketplace, and airport employees from different airlines work in the area, Tello said. South Atlanta is also more affordable than the corridor between I-285 and 75.

Bayshore Investment would like to do another deal in East Point, Tello said. It is also is interested in properties in Atlanta’s northern suburbs in cities such as Marietta and Alpharetta. Tello noted the presence of more Fortune 500 companies on the north side of Atlanta. “We want to grow in other interesting markets (in) south Atlanta, however, they are probably not as tight as other submarkets in North Atlanta like Marietta or Alpharetta. We looked at Stockbridge and Jonesboro but we would need a premium in terms of cap rate because those markets are not as tight compared to other submarkets in North Atlanta,” Tello said.

Nat Scarmazzi, Brian Gaswirth, and Jesse Wright of HFF Miami assisted BIP with financing. Bayshore Investment was represented by Chad Freedman of Ballaga, Freeman & Atkins LLP. Shea Campbell and Keith Geiger of CBRE represented the seller in the transaction.