Portfolio of waterfront Tampa apartment properties fetches $80 million
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jul 7, 2014

A portfolio of waterfront apartment properties in Tampa sold for $80.73 million. Colorado-based UDR Inc. (NYSE: UDR) sold the properties to Cortland Partners of Atlanta, said Jamie May, chairman and CEO of JBM Institutional Multfamily Advisors in Tampa.

May represented UDR in the transaction. The deal includes the 400 apartments in Island Walk, at 5636 Harborside Drive, and 277 units in Gallery at Bayport II, which is across the street from Island Walk, as well as land entitled for 186 new units at the corner of West Hillsborough Avenue and Tampa Shores Boulevard.

Part of Gallery at Bayport II had been converted to condominiums, May said, but Cortland plans to buy those properties and make the entire community a rental apartment community.

Both Gallery at Bayport and Island Walk are concrete-block construction, May said, and close to A-rated schools.

Investor interest in Central Florida multifamily properties continues to climb, May said. The portfolio included an Orlando property - the 371-unit Place on Millenia, built in 2008, which sold for $50.085 million, to a group based in Birmingham, Ala. - and May said he had multiple offers for the entire offering.

"We really were able to tap the appetite of the large private national and some private regional investors,” he said.

Ashley Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.