Urban Genesis is in charge of building 360 mixed-iincome apartments in the Southpark Meadows neighborhood of Austin. The Austin Business Journal reports Travis County Facilities Corp. (TCFC) is working with Urban Genesis on the Coop at Southpark Meadows. Once the Coop at Southpark Meadows finishes, 72 units and 108 units will be set aside for households earning up to 60% and 80% of the median area income. The remaining 180 units, all one-bedroom, will be market-rate units. TCFC is leasing the project’s land to Urban Genesis for development. The first unit delivery is slated for August of this year.

The neighborhood includes a mix of other apartment projects and a regional shopping center. The roughly 1.6-million-square-foot retail hub includes a Walmart Supercenter and Target.

The NRP Group recently broke ground on its own 348-unit community close by in partnership with the Housing Authority of Travis County. first unit delivery for August of this year.

HEDK Architects is the designer.

Third & Urban acquired Northridge Commons, a seven-building, 470,000-square-foot flex industrial campus in Sandy Springs. The Dilweg Companies was the seller. While the most recent sales price was not disclosed, the campus last sold for $51.5 million in 2019. 

Tenants at the project include Pontoon Brewing Co., an Inspire Brands innovation center, and Invitation Homes, a subsidiary of Blackstone. The 38-acre campus is on Dunwoody Place, located off Roswell Road south of the Chattahoochee River.

Northridge Commons is currently 83% leased. Third & Urban said it will reposition some of the office spaces to attract more flex industrial users. 

Third & Urban is known for its creative urban infill projects, such as Common Ground, Westside Paper and Armour Yards. It has also proposed overhauling a sprawling, aging office park on the doorstep of the new Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta campus. The firm’s pipeline encompasses 3.2 million square feet valued at $1.4 billion.

Urban Innovations has signed more than 30 new leases, renewals, and expansions within the past six months, totaling more than 100,000 square feet in transactions.

“UI is committed to working with each business to provide flexible lease terms, growth and consolidation planning and fully furnished, desirable office suites where workers and employers alike can take pride in spaces that many consider to be their second home,” said Aaron Zaretsky of Urban Innovations.

Top transactions in the second half of 2024 include:

● A 28,624 square foot lease to SuperFile, a cyber security company. The tenant was represented by Sean Murphy of Office Space Chicago.

● A 2,105-square-foot lease to Digital marketing firm OpenX Technologies. The tenant was represented by Michael Pasquella of CBRE.

● A 4,770-square-foot lease to Array Behavioral Care, a telepsychiatry practice. The tenant was represented by Steve LaKind of Cushman & Wakefield.

● A 2,290-square-foot lease to Trident Experiential, an event planning firm. The tenant was represented by Craig Nadborne of Bradford Allen.

● A 5,427-square-foot lease to V3 Companies, an engineering and consulting firm. Kurt Kittner of JLL represented the tenant.

● A 6,784-square-foot lease to Engtal, an engineering and technology staffing specialist. The tenant was represented by Chris O’Leary & Megan Winter of Avison Young.

Pacific Urban Investors has bought the 412-unit Mount Vernon Flats at the Perimeter in Atlanta for $102.5 million. The complex will be rebranded The Kinsley at Perimeter Center. Pacific’s entry into the Atlanta market is a continuation of broader portfolio expansion efforts throughout the East Coast which includes communities in the New York Metro, Boston, and Mid-Atlantic markets.

The property is in Perimeter Center, one mile from the 1.5 million-square-foot Perimeter Mall. Built in 1997, Mount Vernon Flats is a three-story garden-style community on 24 acres with a density of 17 units per acre. Its floor plans average 1,101 sq ft.

Pacific Urban’s Patrick Freydberg added, “Pacific would like to thank our counterparty, New York Life Investments, for achieving a very smooth transaction, leveraging our preexisting relationship with Walker Dunlop, the broker”.

Pacific Urban Investors has over $8.5 Billion in assets under management and owns and manages a national portfolio of more than 21,900 units.

Urban Standard Capital recently closed a $7.95 million, 18-month, non-recourse construction completion loan for a Class A mixed-use rental property in Durham, NC. 

At completion, the borrower, Abranova Real Estate, will deliver 48,000 square feet of 37 residential units, 5,000 square feet of co-working space, and 1,500 square feet of retail space. Property renters will also have access to the basketball court, dog park and walking paths at the borrower’s recently completed and neighboring townhome project.

“The amenity sharing between the borrower’s two projects provides 555 Abranova with the same comforts as the 200+ unit comparable properties while retaining a quiet, private, boutique feel because it’s only 37-units,” added Urban Standard’s Vishal Hotchandani.

Site work is complete. Framing has begun and the property will attain a Certificate of Occupancy in  the fourth quarter of 2024 or first quarter of 2025.

Courtesy of White Lodging

The Austin Marriott Downtown, which White Lodging opened in 2021.

White Lodging is moving forward with its plan to entirely offload its assets in suburban markets. The Indiana-based company, which owns, develops and manages hotels across the country, announced it closed on an agreement to sell 25 management contracts for suburban locations. 

The company also plans individual hotel sell-offs, but it did not provide details of those sales beyond noting that the transition would occur over multiple years. Jettisoning its suburban properties “focuses the company’s resources across a concentrated urban portfolio with more complex hotels that deliver memorable and elevated guest experiences,” according to a statement from White Lodging.

That portfolio includes hotels in Indianapolis, Austin, Chicago, Denver, Nashville and Charlotte.

“This strategic portfolio shift further defines our position in the industry and reinforces our focus on urban luxury and lifestyle hotels with independent destination restaurants,” White Lodging Chairman and founder Bruce White said in a statement.

Luxury hotels, while not seeing pre-pandemic occupancy rates, are receiving a boost in room rates, STR data comparing February 2019 and the same month in 2022 showed. While occupancy was almost 20% less than it was prior to the pandemic, rooms were charging an increase of almost 30% over pre-pandemic rates. 

White Lodging’s announcement emphasized that, moving forward, the bars and restaurants in the hotels will be a critical part of its targeted focus on urban markets. 

Hotels catering to domestic leisure clientele are doing well now, and that includes both urban leisure travelers and city dwellers looking for a place to have a good meal or drink, JLL Hotels and Hospitality Global CEO Gilda Perez-Alvarado told Bisnow in December. 

“A lot of these hotels have discovered that maybe they don’t need to rely on the guest who’s staying there overnight, they can rely on the resident or the neighbor who wants to go eat at the hotel or have a beverage at the hotel,” Perez-Alvarado said. “Hotels are being redefined finally as living places, not just staying places.” 

Last year, White Lodging opened four new urban hotels with nine food and beverage offerings in Charlotte, San Antonio and Austin.