By Jon Peterson
Greensboro, N.C.-based Bell Partners has made the decision to halt buying any additional apartment assets for the Bell Institutional Fund VII, according to a board meeting document from the New Mexico State Investment Council. The commingled fund manager wants to wait until there is further market certainty, and this will allow it to have substantial equity to take advantage of market distress.
Bell Partners has already reached its targeted capital raise of $950 million for the commingled fund, as stated by an investor who has made a commitment into the commingled fund.
Two of the targeted markets for the fund are the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. Bell Partners as a company currently owns one apartment complex in its portfolio in the Bay Area, according to its website. This is the 80-unit Bell Uptown District Apartments in Oakland located at 1801 Jefferson. This property was acquired in June 2018 for $44.6 million, and the property was then known as the Maxwell Apartments.
Bell does have a regional office in San Francisco, which it uses to search and manage its properties on the West Coast. This office is located at 235 Pine in San Francisco.
The fund manager also holds ownership of two apartment assets in the greater Seattle market that are both located in Redmond. One of these is the 222-unit Bell Marymoor Park Apartments. This asset was acquired for $91.6 million in December of 2019. The other property is Bell Overlake, which the investor acquired for $96 million in September of 2019.
Prior to Bell pausing its acquisition efforts for Fund VII, it had acquired three assets, however the investment firm did not state in its board meeting document where these properties are located. These investments are projected to represent 13 percent of the total capital raise for the commingled fund.
The commingled fund has a value-add investment strategy buying existing assets in many major markets around the country. These areas are markets where the manager believes that have and are expected to continue to capture a disproportionally large population growth and related job growth compared to national averages. None of the capital for the fund will be invested in any ground-up development projects.
