Schroders Lends $50 Million to Comstock for Commerce Housing

Comstock Realty Partners is closer to making a 14-acre master-planned community in Commerce a reality.

Century City-based Comstock secured $50 million in remediation financing from lender Schroders Capital linked to the Modelo residential and retail development in Commerce, Commercial Observer reported.

The master-planned community is slated to include 740 multifamily pads, 45 condominium units, 65 townhomes and 179,501 square feet of retail between Interstate 5 and Slauson Avenue. The project received entitlements in 2022 to build on the entire site of Veterans Memorial Park.

With the $50 million in fresh financing, Comstock will begin remediating the Veterans Memorial Park property and begin construction on a 3-acre townhome parcel, per CO. The park won’t disappear entirely, as Comstock plans to expand and relocate the public space to a site next to the new development complete with a new 45,000-square-foot community center.

The investment in Modelo will help Comstock “expand housing supply in a market that remains chronically undersupplied,” Paul Bratten, head of U.S. real estate debt investments at Schroders Capital, said of the funding.

The city of Commerce has a significant number of overcrowded households. In 2020, 16 percent of residences in Commerce were overcrowded, defined by the California Department of Housing and Community Development as units with more than one inhabitant per bedroom. By contrast, 11 percent of homes in Los Angeles County fall into that category.

The city of Commerce is mandated by the state to plan for 247 new units of housing by 2029 as part of its housing element. Of those units, 55 are to be for very-low-income households, 22 for low-income, 39 for moderate-income and 131 for above-moderate-income residents. Commerce looks to help developers pursue more affordable housing projects in the gateway city by offering streamlined processing, fee modifications, density bonus incentives, reductions in development and parking standards, and funding, when available, for off-site improvements and any required environmental cleanup, according to city officials.

— Chris Malone Méndez