West Shore, a Boston-based multifamily investment and management firm, has acquired the Palm Beach Gardens Apartments, a 542-unit complex in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, for $117.9 million. The purchase is part of an ongoing trend of increased multifamily investment sales in South Florida.
The property was sold by Advenir, an Aventura-based company led by David Vecchitto. According to public records and data from Vizzda, West Shore financed the acquisition with a $550 million loan from Citybank. This loan is cross-collateralized across several properties, including another site in Pinellas County and assets outside Florida; the Florida properties account for 25.3 percent of the collateral. The financing will mature in 2030.
Palm Beach Gardens Apartments consists of 34 two-story rental buildings along with a storage building and clubhouse on a 21.5-acre site. The complex was completed in 1970 and 1971 and offers one- to three-bedroom units with monthly rents ranging from $1,842 to over $2,855.
Advenir purchased the complex for $97.3 million in 2018 and secured an $80 million loan at that time to renovate the property. Since its founding in 1996, Advenir has owned and managed more than 30,000 units and currently oversees a portfolio valued at $2.9 billion.
West Shore manages more than 18,500 units across 54 properties with total holdings exceeding $4.5 billion under the leadership of Lee E. Rosenthal.
South Florida’s multifamily market has recently seen an oversupply after years of heavy construction activity. In the previous year alone, developers completed about 18,600 apartments while only around 15,000 net new leases were signed according to CoStar Group data (https://www.costargroup.com/). This imbalance resulted in slower lease-ups for new developments as well as increased concessions for renters and slight declines in average asking rents across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties.
Despite higher interest rates making financing more challenging for some buyers—who have turned to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae loans or other funding sources—multifamily investment sales have been rising recently as investors look for value-add opportunities or use alternative financial strategies such as assuming existing loans or paying cash.
Recent transactions include Morgan Properties’ purchase of Visions at Willow Pond near West Palm Beach for nearly $70 million; Tishman Speyer’s acquisition of Bell at Broken Sound Apartments in Boca Raton for $124.5 million; and TA Realty’s purchase last month of San Merano at Mirasol Apartments in Palm Beach Gardens for $193 million.
