By Jack Stubbs
On Tuesday, May 1st, ACF Property Management Inc., a California-based real estate management company, sold a portion of the retail component of the the 368-unit Avalon Meydenbauer Apartments in Bellevue for $16.6 million, according to public records filed with King County.
The buyer of the retail space was Dallas, Texas-based Crow Holdings Capital Real Estate, a North American-focused asset manager of private equity real estate funds.
AvalonBay Communities Inc. continues to own and operate the residential portion of the property, the Avalon Meydenbauer Apartments.
According to public documents, the retail space in the apartment complex totals 77,364 net square feet and includes a Safeway.
The Avalon Meydenbauer Apartments, located at 10410 NE 2nd Street in downtown Bellevue, is a two-building property built in 2008 that totals 6 stories and contains 368 units, according to the property listing on apartments.com. Some of the prominent in-unit amenities include porch/balcony, track lighting, energy-efficient windows, hard surface flooring and a visual intercom system, according to the web site. Some of the community amenities include a fitness center, landscaped barbecue and picnic area, resident clubhouse, bike storage area and 24-hour controlled access and emergency maintenance services.
Located in downtown Bellevue, the property is adjacent to Bellevue Downtown Park and less than half a mile from the Bellevue Square Shopping Mall. Additionally, the asset is roughly one mile from the Meydenbauer Convention Center and approximately 1.5 miles from access to Interstate 405.
Bellevue’s central business district has been a hotbed of development and investment action in recent weeks, and activity in the city’s downtown core shows little signs of slowing. On April 11th, The Shops at Bravern, a 313,119 square foot retail complex located less than a mile from the Avalon Meydenbauer property, was put on the market by HFF. Developed in 2009, the retail village is part of a larger mixed-use project that consists of 455 luxury residential units and 750,000 square feet of Class A office space which is 100 percent leased to tech giant Microsoft.
Founded in 1991, Crow Holdings’ real estate division seeks to acquire a diversified portfolio of real estate assets on behalf of private individuals and institutional investors, according to the company’s web site. Since 1998, Crow Holdings Capital (CHC) Real Estate and CHC-affiliated entities have managed ten private equity real estate funds with equity capital totaling approximately $6.59 billion—with this equity capital, the company has acquired or developed $17.9 billion in assets. The company seeks to invest in various property types including warehouses, self-storage facilities, retail centers, multifamily housing (including rental and for-sale housing), student housing, commercial office buildings, hospitals and hotels, among others.
In terms of its acquisition strategy for multifamily properties, the company seeks Class A/B apartments located in primary and larger secondary markets with strong population and job growth, according to the company’s web site. Crow Holdings generally focuses on the investment and development of garden-style and urban infill housing properties that contain a minimum of 200 units.
