NY firm buys St. Pete apartment complex for $93M

In one of the largest multifamily transactions along the Gulf Coast in the past decade, a New York investment firm acquired the Bay Isle Key apartments in St. Petersburg for $93.75 million.

TGM Associates bought the 582-unit complex, at 11850 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St., on Aug. 11, a company official says. As part of its purchase, TGM intends to continue upgrading a series of units, work which seller Heitman Capital Management LLC of Chicago had begun.

“We think this asset is fantastic and it has great bones,” says TGM managing principal and chief operating officer John Gochberg. “But its location is just phenomenal.”

The newly renamed TGM Bay Isle complex, which consists of 22 buildings on 50 acres, is in close proximity to Interstate 275 and Gandy Boulevard with access to downtown St. Petersburg and Tampa, MacDill Air Force Base and Westshore.

The community, which consists of one-, two- and three-bedroom units and some townhomes, was completed in phases in 1998 and 2004. Existing amenities include three swimming pools, two athletic clubs, a pair of outdoor kitchens with gas grills and firepits and a dog park. Residents also have access to tennis courts, a putting green and a renovated clubhouse containing a kitchen and billiard table.

Bay Isle marks the latest in a series of regional acquisitions by TGM. It was founded in 1991 and has invested roughly $2.5 billion to buy 129 apartment communities in 28 states in all. Regionally, it also owns and manages the TGM Bermuda Island and TGM Malibu Lakes, in Naples; and the TGM Palm Aire, in Sarasota.

CBRE INC. senior vice presidents John Selby and Sean Williams, based out of the commercial real estate services firm's Tampa office, brokered the TGM Bay Isle sale.