Senior-housing market has new player

BUYER: Quadrum Global (Quadrum Lakes Park LLC), Miami Beach
SELLER: Beck Group of Ft. Myers LLC
PROPERTY: 7650 Gladiolus Drive and 7210 Congdon Road, Fort Myers
PRICE: $10.75 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $3 million, June 2004

A billion-dollar private equity and development firm is entering the senior housing market, starting with a flagship location in Fort Myers.

London-based Quadrum Global purchased 32.5 acres on Gladiolus Drive just west of Interstate 75 for $10.75 million. The price equated to $330,769 per acre.

The company plans to create 335 resort-style senior housing rental units in 264,070 square feet along with 100,000 square feet of associated commercial space. Its early plans are to have assisted- and independent-living apartments and 50 independent-living cottages.

The decision to target senior housing is unusual for Quadrum Global.

Started in 2005 with hedge fund money to invest in distressed hotels, the company has since changed strategies. It is now more U.S. focused and uses private equity funding from several wealthy families and individuals, primarily in Europe and Israel.

It owns beachfront hotels in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach, a Disney World-area hotel, office buildings near Buckingham Palace in London, a logistics facility in Ukraine and apartments in Manhattan. It is also developing apartments in Long Island City, retail shopping centers and residential communities in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a 33-story hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

But Quadrum is not completely new to Southwest Florida. From January 2011 to March 2012, it was part of a joint venture that bought several non-performing loans secured by commercial and residential real estate in Cape Coral, Bonita Beach, Fort Myers and Naples. It still owns an office building in Cape Coral and a shopping center in North Naples.

Seth Schumer, Quadrum's director of U.S. investments, says the company first got interested in Fort Myers when it was offered a distressed senior housing community there.

“We ended up not doing that deal,” he says. “But as a result we became very familiar with the senior housing market in Fort Myers.”

The company liked what it saw, particularly with the region's aging demographics, strong demand and limited supply. It also connected with and hired Colin Marshall, a longtime senior housing executive and past executive director of The Carlisle Naples. He is now leading the senior housing construction and operations division, Quadrum Senior Living Management.

All it needed was a place to build. So the company tasked Dan Miller, of Colliers International Southwest Florida, with finding a 30-acre site in Southwest Florida near a hospital and with entitlements for senior housing living.

It took about 60 days, but what Miller found was the Oasis Cove development site. Originally a multifamily site, the Stoneburner family had entitled the property for 160 units of assisted-living, 300 independent-living units and 100,000 square feet of commercial space. It is surrounded by health care providers, adjacent to 279-acre Lakes Regional Park and is less than four miles from both Gulf Coast Medical Center and HealthPark Medical Center.

“It had everything that first deal didn't have,” Schumer says. “It's in an enclosed resort-style area that's a five-minute drive to some of the better hospitals in the area. It was very attractive.”

Quadrum Global wants to do more senior housing, but wants to complete this project first. It expects pre-development to take nine months and to deliver the first phase in about two years.

Marshall says that Quadrum Global chose Fort Myers over larger more dense cities because they were more competitive. The CoStar Group reports there are only nine senior housing facilities with more than 100,000 square feet of space in Lee County. Of those, only seven are in Fort Myers and only four have more than 200,000 square feet.

“I believe this will change the senior housing landscape because of the size and luxury market that they are pursuing,” Miller says.