NBA player Tobias Harris and his hoopster-turned-developer brother Terry Harris scored $46.6 million construction financing for an apartment development in Echo Park.
The Harris brothers–one currently with the Detroit Pistons and the other having played in a developmental league– secured senior and mezzanine debt from JP Morgan and BlueHub Capital. Concord Summit Capital’s Robert Horton and George Smith Partners’ Justin Piasecki arranged the financing.
The development, located in the southern end of the largely residential Echo Park District adjacent to Downtown L.A., totals about 86,500 square feet and includes studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. The apartments are deed-restricted at 80 percent, meaning households can only earn up to 80 percent of the median income; in Los Angeles County that would be $84,500 for a single person, $96,950 for two, $109,050 for three and so on, according to the Department of Regional Planning’s income limits.
The 189-apartment development at 1540 West Court Street benefits from Mayor Karen Bass’ Executive Directive 1 (ED1), which aims to streamline the approval process for affordable housing.
The basketball players turned developers have two other Echo Park projects: one at 1230 West Sunset Boulevard and the other at 333 Douglas Street. The latter is set to be 33 apartments, spanning about 22,000 square feet — and the former, 87 apartments and around 42,000 square feet but is not yet under construction. Visionary Developments has a mixed-use project in Silver Lake that is under planning review, too.
Los Angeles’ multifamily market ended the first quarter of the year with a 95.4 percent occupancy rate, according to a CBRE report; the average rent per apartment was $2,822.
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