Downtown Memphis apartments open in shaky market - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

http://mideastmonitor.org/issues/0705/0705_6.htm
But the current market remindeBlake Pera, vice president at , of when Downtown had 1,300 units coming online with properties such as Bellwe Harbor, Jefferson River Estates and Fielder Squarer Downtown. “The question was whether there were too many units and how deep was the Pera says. “I think what they found was they were Two largerupscale projects, Metro 67 with 157 unit and the first phase of The Horizon with 155 should open within the year.
“They’ll compete against each other, but I think there’s enougg depth in the Downtownluxury market,” Pera The Horizon, initially slated to be a 350-uni t condominium development at 717 Riverside Drive, in March appliedd for a tax abatement that would allow the project’s first phase to become apartmentsx instead. And just this week, the property went into foreclosure after its developer defaulted ona $58.65 million loan. ’s 16-story tower is almost but the Horizon’s future will have to wait until aftefrJuly 7, when the property is schedulex for foreclosure auction.
When thesd units hit the marke depends on how thatsale Meanwhile, Metro 76, a $40 million-$445 million, 12-story upscale apartmentf project at 67 Madison being developed by , is stilk on schedule and should open in July or Its project manager, Kip Platt, a principaol at EFO Residential, believes the market can hold a few hundredx luxury units. “I’m guardedly optimistic, but therre is no comparison to anythingelse here,” Platt “This is a property that is rent by choice for peoples who want to try Downtown, peopled who are empty-nesters or people who live in Memphis for two-threwe years.
” With the exception of the units range from 587 square feet to 1,740 squarer feet, with the average unit being 1,013 square feet. Rents range from $755 to $2,600, with the averaged unit rentingfor $1,381 a The penthouse is a 2,570-square-foot unit with a privat balcony on the 12th While the other rooms have nine-foot the penthouse has 12-foot Platt would not disclose its asking Built in the former headquarters Metro 67 also has 8,000p square feet of storage 18,000 square feet of ground floor commercialo space and 400 parking spots in the garaged across Madison, connected by an underground access.
Metro 67 has a litanyt of other features, including a 10th floor amenityu deck overlooking the new Law a wine cellar andcoffee bar, a fitness a business center, a media room with stadiumj seating and an environmentally friendly design that saves 30% on utilities compares to a traditional unit. Althoughg the country is in the middle of a Platt points to the fact thatMetro 67’d leasing company, , only has to lease 157 upscale not several hundred typicallyu found in a multi-family project. He adds that while the economy is downin Memphis, it’se not as bad as other partzs of the country. These high-end projects also have the Downtown submarket’s strengths to fall back on.
Downtown has the highes t rents in Memphis for new constructionat $1.067 per square foot, according to CB Richard Multi-Housing MarketView report for the first The overall Memphis average for new construction is $0.86 per square foot. New apartments Downtown also havea 90.2 occupancy rate, slightly under the 90.7% occupancy average for new constructionm across all Memphis submarkets. “Thde numbers are down from years past, but just Pera says.
“There are not many areas acrosz the country that have not been impactedd bythe economy, but for the most part it is outperforminv the rest of the