New York firms buy 2 sets of St. Pete apartments

Two New York-based buyers spent a total of $149 million, or about $136,000 per unit, to acquire apartment properties in St. Petersburg.

Trellis on the Lakes, a 66-acre apartment complex with 688 units, sold for $80.84 million.

Monthly rents range from $913 to $1,415. Common-area features include two swimming pools and tennis courts and a fitness center. Built in 1982, the rental complex at 11401 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street North is in north St. Petersburg near Interstate 275.

The new owner is ESG Kullen in Manhattan, founded by Eric Granowsky and Thomas DelPonti. The seller is a partnership called Camden Operating Ltd.

ESG Kullen is a specialist in buying properties from distressed sellers and renovating them. The firm says on its website that it owns more than 3,500 units at 28 multifamily properties in California, Florida, New York and Texas.

TGM Associates, also headquartered in Manhattan, paid $68 million for the Ibis Walk Apartments in north St. Petersburg, near the Gandy Boulevard bridge to Tampa.

Monthly rents range from $1,180 to $2,045 at the 401-unit rental complex at 871 Ibis Walk Place North, which opened for occupancy in 2014.

TGM’s acquisition of the Ibis Walk Apartments brought to five the number of residential developments the firm owns in St. Petersburg, Naples and Sarasota.

TGM in August bought the 582-unit Bay Key Isles apartment complex in St. Petersburg for $95.75 million and has started renovating hundreds of units.

John Gochberg, co-founder, managing principal and chief executive officer of TGM, told the Business Observer that his firm looks for “properties in high-growth, key locations with positive pressures, such as the cost of renting being a discount to the cost of buying a home.” [Business Observer] – Mike Seemuth