The DSF Group has purchased a 300-unit apartment complex in Tarrytown for $91 million, according to county property records. The purchase price represents the county”™s largest property transaction so far this year.
The property, Talleyrand Apartments, located along Crescent Drive off White Plains Road, was sold by Equity Residential, an S&P 500 real estate investment trust that had held it for 16 years.
CBRE announced it had brokered the deal to The DSF Group in a press release March 26, but it did not disclose the sale price or the seller it represented.
A deed recorded March 20 shows the property was transferred between EQR-Talleyrand LLC, an affiliated company of the publicly traded Equity Residential, and Crescent Drive Owner LLC, an affiliated company of The DSF Group.
The 300-unit townhouse style apartment complex was developed in the late 1990s by Valhalla-based Cappelli Enterprises. Equity Residential, a Chicago company, bought the property in 2002 for a reported $61 million.
Rents for one-bedroom apartments in the complex start at $2,040 and two-bedrooms $2,330, according to listings by property management company Buzzuto. Amenities on the site include private two-car garages, 24-hour emergency maintenance and landscaped barbecue and picnic areas.
CBRE Vice Chairman Jeffrey Dunne said the property garnered significant interest, with dozens of site visits in the month it was on the market. He said the property”™s age, built almost two decades ago, made it attractive to buyers willing to invest
“People like to buy product at this age where they can do some improvements,” Dunne said. “This fit the bill for a lot of people. I wish I had ten properties like it.”
Dunne represented the seller along with CBRE”™s Gene Pride and Eric Apfel.
Talleyrand”™s location ”“ near I-287, Tarrytown”™s Metro-North stop, the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Saw Mill River Parkway ”“ also made it attractive, Dunne said. Rents in Westchester County have increased by more than 3.1 percent on average since 2009, according to CBRE. CBRE credited that in part to a limited new supply in the region caused by high barriers of entry for new construction.
Equity is the third-largest owner of apartment properties in the country, according to data kept by the National Multifamily Housing Council. The company owns or is invested in more than 300 properties adding up to more than 78,000 apartment units. Its properties are primarily in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco and Southern California. The company’s board chairman and founder is billionaire Sam Zell.
Voicemail and email messages left for Equity Residential were not returned before press time.
The company owned 39 buildings in New York as of Dec. 31, 2017, according to its annual SEC filing. But Talleyrand was its only investment outside New York City.
The Real Deal reported Monday that Equity Residential also sold this month a 3-story, 155-unit rental building on the Upper East Side for about $85 million.
The buyer for Talleyrand, The DSF Group, is a private real estate company founded in 2000 by Arthur P. Solomon, Joshua Solomon and Thomas Mazza. The DSF Group has invested more than $2.5 billion in real estate since its founding, with investments focused in urban locations in the Boston, New York and Washington metropolitan areas. The company manages about 3,000 rental units worth $1.2 billion.
DSF Group President Joshua Solomon said in a statement through CBRE that his firm is “excited to further expand our presence within the metro New York market, and we look forward to bringing our amenity-rich Halstead brand to Tarrytown.”
The company”™s other Westchester properties include the 40-story Halstead New Rochelle building. In November 2016, the company paid $148.5 million for Halstead New Rochelle”™s neighbor, La Rochelle, a 25-story tower with 412 apartments at 255 Huguenot St. in downtown New Rochelle.
DSF formerly owned Halstead White Plains Metro North, a 124-unit luxury apartment building at 34 S. Lexington Ave. in White Plains. The company sold the property to Ginsburg Development Cos. for $35 million in February 2017. Ginsburg rebranded the apartment tower as The Metro a few months later.
The apartments are next door to the Talleyrand Office Park. The office buildings, at 200 and 220 White Plains Road feature two, six-story buildings totaling 179,000 square feet. Keystone Property Group purchased the buildings in 2014, along with 555, 565 and 570 Taxter Road in Elmsford and Soundview Plaza in Stamford, for approximately $91.5 million from Mack-Cali Realty Corp. as part of its acquisition of Mack-Cali”™s tristate
office portfolio.
