CGI+ Real Estate Strategies, the multifamily investment firm founded by Gidi Cohen, has sold a fully entitled Los Angeles development site to JPI for $40 million, The Real Deal has learned.
The 4.9-acre, shovel-ready property, at 22107-22127 Vermont Avenue, is adjacent to The Harbor-UCLA Medical Center at South Vermont Avenue near 220th Street in Torrance.
“We were able to generate attractive returns on the sale of the land while still leaving plenty of runway for the buyer,” Cohen said in a news release about the deal.
L.A.-based CGI+ acquired the property in June 2022 for $23.2 million, according to property records.
The following year, the Los Angeles County Development Authority signed off on a 525-unit housing project for the site known as The Bungalows on Vermont Avenue. Thirty-four units were earmarked for families making 30 percent of the area median income.
Designed by AC Martin, CGI+’s project was slated to be “the largest multifamily community ever developed within Los Angeles’s 17-square mile South Bay submarket,” CGI+ said in the release.
Plans called for a six-story wrap building with studios through three-bedrooms units, according to the firm’s website and the release. The eight-story parking structure was slated to have a 28,000-square-foot “aerial central park” on the roof level with pool, coffee shop, clubhouse, indoor/outdoor gym, pickleball court and outdoor lounge spaces.
CGI+ was scheduled to break ground in first-quarter 2023 with completion set for 2025.
“Rising interest rates and dramatic increases in labor and construction costs delayed the start of construction,” Cohen said.
That ultimately led to CGI+ deciding to sell the asset, a spokesperson for the company said.
Now, CGI+ plans to focus on acquiring “value-add, market-rate and low-income housing in Southern California and select markets” in the Southeast, per the release.
The Vermont Avenue site falls within a 15-block stretch of the Harbor Freeway selected by L.A. County for transit-oriented housing development. The West Carson Transit Oriented District Specific Plan, adopted in 2019, aims to add thousands of new housing units, plus new commercial space to the unincorporated area.
JPI, an Irving, Texas-based development and construction company, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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