California Landmark Group Sells L.A. Apartment Building for $43M

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California Landmark Group has unloaded a three-story, 120-unit apartment property in South Los Angeles for $43.4 million, or $362,000 per unit.

The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) acquired the 90,983-square-foot building on a 43,000-square-foot lot at 349 South La Fayette Place. HACLA said it will restrict 90 of the units to families earning at or below 80 percent of the area median income, equivalent to $70,640 per year for a single-person household.

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Colliers (CIGI) and HACLA separately announced the deal.

HACLA said it lined up a financing package for the acquisition that included $23.4 million from City National Bank and $19.5 million of federal community development block grant funding. Since the transaction involved a public agency buyer, the sale was exempt from the Measure ULA transfer tax, per Colliers.

“With a shortage of over 500,000 housing units in the city of Los Angeles, mounting obstacles to housing development including the implementation of the ULA tax, CEQA, and elevated costs of construction and debt, finding innovative solutions to alleviate high rent burdens for workforce residents is paramount,” said Colliers’ Kitty Wallace, who facilitated the deal with Kalli Knight. (CEQA is a state regulation requiring developers to factor in a project’s environmental impacts.) 

Apartment asking rents are at all-time high in Los Angeles County but investment sales have been muted, with almost 60 percent fewer multifamily units traded in the first quarter this year compared to last year. 

HACLA said it’s the largest owner of affordable housing in L.A. with more than 11,000 such units, and has purchased more than 2,000 units for nearly $900 million since 2020.

Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.