AvalonBay Communities Buys NJ Apartment Community for $63 Million
By Carl Gaines March 20, 2012 9:00 am
reprintsHFF has closed on the sale of a Class A multi-housing complex in Watchung, NJ. The seller was GID Investment Advisors and the property, at One Crystal Ridge Drive, was purchased by AvalonBay Communities for $63 million.
Both buyer and seller were arranged by HFF.
Windsor at Crystal Ridge sits on nearly 25 acres off of Route 22 and consists of 15 three story buildings, with units averaging just over 1,000 square feet.
Jose Cruz, a senior managing director on the HFF investment sales team that represented GID Investment Advisors, said in a prepared statement that the asset was an unusual one for the area. “This was a rare opportunity to purchase a newer Class A multihousing complex in affluent Somerset County,” he said, adding that the area “has a scarcity of Class A product and no construction pipeline for any competing properties to be built in the near future.”
Mr. Cruz was joined on the assignment by senior managing director Andrew Scandalios, managing director Kevin O’Hearn, director Jeffrey Julien and associate director Steve Simonelli.
Windsor at Crystal Ridge is 98 percent leased. Buyer AvalonBay, based in northern Virginia, develops, redevelops and acquires apartment communities such as Windsor at Crystal Ridge. It tends to focus on high-barrier to entry markets, a strategy company spokesman John Christie reiterated to The Commercial Observer when reached for comment.
“New Jersey to us is a very attractive market in apartment rentals and this compliments the portfolio of assets we already have in the area,” Mr. Christie said. “It’s also an area where there is limited amount of new apartment product.”
