Meta Housing Sells Tustin Senior Apartments

A mixed-income housing complex for senior citizens in Orange County has exchanged hands for more than $80 million.

New York-based Jonathan Rose Companies bought Coventry Court, a 240-unit mix of market-rate and affordable apartments in Tustin, for $83 million, or about $345,833 per unit, the Orange County Business Journal reported. Los Angeles-based affordable housing developer Meta Housing Corporation was the seller.

The 55-and-older community at 16000 Cambridge Street houses affordable apartments, with just 87 of the 240 — or about 36 percent — being offered at market-rate prices.

The Coventry Court complex was opened in 2013 as part of Columbus Square, a joint venture led by master developers Lennar Homes and William Lyon Homes, that boasts a total of 1,075 residential units. It was built on the site of Tustin Ranch, a citrus farm that eventually was transformed by various firms into a mixed-use development with housing and a shopping center.

Jonathan Rose Companies specializes in acquiring affordable and mixed-income housing across the United States. In California, the New York-based firm has five complexes in its portfolio, all of which are exclusive to senior citizens: The Grove Apartments, a Section 8 affordable property in Ontario; Casa Panorama, a Section 8 complex in Los Angeles’ Panorama City; Glendora Gardens, a Section 8 development in Glendora; Belage Manor Apartments, a Section 8 and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit campus in Anaheim; and the mixed-income Pasatiempo Apartments in Fremont.

Elsewhere in Tustin, Irvine Company is looking to build more than 1,300 homes on the site of a former U.S. Marine Corps air station. An affiliate of the Newport Beach-based developer paid $42.1 million for 19.4 acres of city-owned land bounded by Warner Avenue, Legacy Road, Tustin Ranch Road and Compass Avenue, the Orange County Register reported. It works out to nearly $2.2 million per acre. That project, dubbed Tustin Legacy, is slated to include 1,336 apartments, with 334, or about 25 percent, set aside for lower-income households.

— Chris Malone Méndez