California firm buys Section 8 apartments in Allapattah for $25M

Cordova, Tennessee-based Global Ministries Foundation sold the Civic Towers in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood for $25 million. 

Records show Redwood Housing Partners of Burlingame, California bought the Section 8 Housing development at 1855 Northwest 15th Avenue.

The seller, an Evangelical and outreach church, also invests in affordable housing properties across the United States. GMF Civic Towers LLC paid $15.6 million for the 196-unit building in 2011, which means the company sold it for a 60 percent increase in six years.

Civic Towers, built in 1982, sits on a 2.81-acre lot. Nearly all of the 17-story building’s units are Section 8 housing. To qualify, residents must make less than 50 percent of the area median income. Rent for a one-bedroom is $864 a month, according to financial website Credio.

Redwood affiliate Civic Towers LLLP is led by managing director Ryan Fuson and was created in 2013, according to Bloomberg.

The demand for affordable and workforce housing is high in South Florida as wages remain stagnant and the cost of living continues to increase. The gentrification of neighborhoods like Allapattah also leads to increased rents.

Allapattah, which is west of Wynwood, has seen a surge of commercial investment in recent years. In September, Miami Beach developer Robert Wennett paid $16 million for the Miami Produce Center, a nearly 10-acre site in Allapattah. A couple of months later, the Rubell Family Collection announced it was moving from Wynwood to a new 100,000-square-foot museum in Allapattah.