Apartments an affordable housing owner tried to buy are sold to private investors

An apartment community in east Charlotte has been sold to a group of private investors who plan renovations that could raise the rent, after a nonprofit affordable housing group was outbid.

Arcadian Village, a 348-unit, garden-style apartment development, dates to 1970. It’s located on Idlewild Road, just off Independence Boulevard. One-bedroom units start at $659, according to Apartments.com, and two-bedroom units range from $764 to $804.

A company affiliated with Miami-based Monument Real Estate Services paid $24.3 million to buy the property from Lerner & Company Real Estate in a deal that closed last week, real estate records show. That comes out to just under $70,000 per apartment.

Capstone Apartment Partners brokered the sale. In a statement, the company said the new owners were attracted to Arcadian Village as a “value-add” property, a term typically used to describe investments where a new owner makes improvements and then raises rents in order to get a return on the investment.

“The buyer plans to improve the community by adding new amenities and completing the ongoing interior renovation program,” Capstone executives said, in a statement. The apartments are across Independence from the new M Station mixed-use development.

At a Charlotte City Council retreat last week, the president of the nonprofit Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing Partnership said that group had tried to buy Arcadian Village. The partnership wanted to renovate the units and keep them affordable, but they were outbid by the private investment group.

“The rents were $600 to $800 a month,” said Julie Porter, the partnership’s president. “They will flip to $900 to $1,000.”

This story was originally published February 8, 2018 at 7:33 AM with the headline "Apartments an affordable housing owner tried to buy are sold to private investors."