Apartment complex trades for $110.5 million

BRADENTON — A Jupiter-based firm has acquired a waterfront Bradenton apartment community for $110.5 million, the largest sale of a multifamily rental complex in the Sarasota or Bradenton markets in the past decade.

FLF Holdings' purchase of the Carlton Arms of Bradenton marks the latest in a series of acquisitions for the 15-year-old firm, which owns properties in Florida, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to its website.

The 900-unit complex, at 5200 Riverfront Drive, had been owned and managed for nearly four decades by The Mahaffey Apartment Co., of Winter Park, property and state records indicate.

In addition to being among the few multifamily rental complexes on the water in either Sarasota or Manatee counties, the Carlton Arms community features more than 12,000 square feet of retail space, swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts, clubhouses, guest suites, a fitness center and docks containing 50 boat slips.

Carlton Arms was nearly fully leased at the time of the sale.

Mahaffey and co-owner Brighthouse Life Insurance Co., an affiliate of Metropolitan Life Insurance, were represented in the sale by commercial real estate brokerage firm Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P.'s Senior Managing Director Matt Mitchell and Director Zach Nolan.

HFF Managing Director Elliott Throne also arranged for $76 million in 10-year, Freddie Mac financing for FLF.

Throne says the Freddie Mac “Green Up” loan will allow FLF to “effectively execute” a renovation to the community, which was completed in 1980.

FLF owns more than 2,500 apartment units in Florida and elsewhere, with a concentration in Jupiter, its website notes.

The company's portfolio also contains more than two million square feet of industrial, retail and office space, and it also operates a Chicago area management firm, Crossroads Partners, which has a portfolio totaling four million square feet of space.

The Carlton Arms' transaction marks one of the largest multifamily deals along the Gulf Coast in the past decade, easily eclipsing the top apartment sales in Sarasota and Bradenton in each of the past two years.

By comparison, the largest multifamily rental deal in the two counties in 2017 — Northland Investment Corp.'s purchase of the 360-unit Echo Lake Apartments in Lakewood Ranch -- amounted to $76.1 million.

Northland Investment, of Boston, also completed the top apartment deal in the region in 2017, when it spent $112.4 million to buy the 35-story Element apartment tower, in downtown Tampa.

Apartment communities have been highly sought after assets during the past five years, the result of nationwide trends of declining home ownership, higher than average population influx and job growth in Florida and a lack of multifamily construction to keep pace with demand.