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A Miami-based firm known for its luxury residential portfolio shelled out nearly $240 million for a two-building, 350-unit apartment complex in Santa Ana’s South Coast Metro area, making it among the largest Orange County apartment transactions within the first 100 days of the year.
Crescent Heights picked up the 350-unit Skyline at MacArthur Place, an upscale, two-tower Santa Ana apartment complex that has served as OC’s tallest residential project since 2008, in the deal that closed April 2. The seller of the twin towers was San Mateo-based Essex Property Trust Inc.
The price pencils out to just under $685,000 per unit—or $467 per square foot—for the 512,791-square-foot property, according to CoStar data.
Skyline is located at 15 MacArthur Place, near the intersection of the San Diego (405) Freeway and Costa Mesa (55) Freeway and less than two miles from South Coast Plaza.
Skyline was developed by Santa Ana-based Nexus Development, a real estate company headed by Curt Olson. The twin 25-floor residential towers, which cost about $350 million to build in 2008, were originally slated to be a 349-unit condominium project. New ownership bought the property in 2010 and converted the residential towers from condos to rentals.
The Crescent Heights multifamily portfolio includes many properties in Los Angeles, including Ten Thousand at 10000 Santa Monica Blvd. in Century City, 11th & Olive at 1045 S. Olive St. in downtown LA and Palladium Residences at 6215 Sunset Blvd.
Crescent Heights also owns CityFront Terrace at 500 W. Harbor Drive in San Diego.
Skyline at MacArthur Place is the only Orange County property within the Crescent Heights portfolio.
It is one of the priciest real estate transactions for Orange County this year, more than doubling the $108 million Beverly Hills-based BLDG Partners paid for the 394-unit Park Vista apartment property in February.
Namesake Boulevard
Crescent Heights began in 1986 with a series of acquisitions alongside its namesake boulevard in Los Angeles. It says it pioneered the condo-hotel concept with developments in the Art Deco district of Miami Beach in 1992 and completed the first office-to-residential conversion in New York City’s financial district in 1994.
The Miami-based real estate company has multifamily properties in Chicago, New York, Miami, San Francisco and Seattle. Also within the Crescent Heights portfolio are retail properties in Miami and office buildings in London.
Essex Favors NorCal Investments
Skyline at MacArthur Place is the second apartment complex Essex Property Trust sold in Southern California this year. The San Mateo-based real estate company separately sold an apartment building in Rancho Palos Verdes for $127 million, or $498,000 per unit, to Bascom Group, as reported by the Business Journal in February.
Essex Property Trust is an S&P 500 company and a real estate investment trust (REIT) that buys, develops, manages and redevelops multifamily properties on the West Coast. The San Mateo-based company owns 257 apartment properties with 62,000 units; it has an $18.1 billion valuation (NYSE: ESS).