Greenwich-based Belpointe”™s collaborative investment model has taken its newest real estate venture to the center of Norwalk giving an old project new life, with plans to replicate and expand.
“Through the recession we”™ve invested in people who we think have corresponding attitudes toward business,” said Brandon Lacoff, managing partner and co-founder of Belpointe L.L.C., an investment company.
Belpointe”™s new real estate arm, Belpointe Capital, is the company responsible for the Norwalk Town Center project, which is the former Waypointe development. Belpointe has professional service businesses that range from wealth management and landscaping to real estate investment.
Belpointe Capital is headed by Lacoff and Paxton Kinol, who has been involved in Stamford developments the Mill River House, Glenview House and Eastside Commons. The company has eight employees, having added three this month.
“Norwalk Town Center is our first project,” Kinol said. “But we will be looking to grow quickly.”
The Norwalk Town Center project is the newest iteration of the Waypointe project, originated by Stanley M. Seligson Properties, which is a partner in the development. The project has recently received approvals for its first phase that consists of construction of 330 multifamily style apartments. The $200 million development is looking to break ground Sept. 21.
The group”™s equity partner in the project is San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners, which has offices in New Canaan and Manhattan.
Located on West Avenue, Norwalk Town Center will cover 10 acres and include 725 apartments in all. Initial occupancy is slated to begin at the end of 2012.
The project is expected to create 200 construction jobs. Once Norwalk Town Center is in the ground Lacoff expects to have more than 100 jobs created for retail and property management.
Lacoff said since Belpointe came to the project early this summer they have flipped the project”™s focus from retail to residential.
“It was essentially 80 percent retail before, now it”™s 80 percent residential, and 20 retail,” said Lacoff.
According to a report by Berkeley, Calif.-based MJB Consulting, commissioned by the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency in January, the then Waypointe retail space, “would likely be priced more expensively than current opportunity justifies, and struggle to land and retain tenants.”
“It”™s the needs of the community,” Lacoff said. “A residential project with a retail element works today, not just for us, but also for the community and the banks.”
Kinol said there is financing available for multifamily housing even as lending has gone back to being more conventional.
“You have loans that are available at 60 to 70 percent of cost, which means you need 40 to 30 percent of equity, whereas in 2007 we were looking at deals getting done with literally zero equity and 100 percent debt,” said Kinol. “The world has shifted but multifamily is still strong; mutual investors want to own multifamily because it”™s considered the most stable real estate asset today, especially multi-family in the north east. They trade at very low cap rates, as interest rates stay low cap rates will stay low. The value is there.”
Kinol said building a phase at a time, instead of attempting to get the entire project in the ground at once, is core to the strategy. He said Belpointe is currently in negotiations to buy additional land around the project to possibly add up to six or seven phases to the project.
“It”™s no secret we”™re in talks to expand the projects footprint in every direction,” said Kinol.
Kinol said Belpointe is also talking with other developers to partner with and develop additional portions of the project as they gain the land.
“That will add to the overall pie, even though we may not have any financial gain,” said Kinol. “We”™re happy to do what we can do and have others come in around us, that is how you change the entire whole of what is here.”
Kinol said Belpointe has been approved for an additional multifamily project in Fairfield and is currently looking at expanding and repeating the model throughout the Northeast.
