Morgan Group closes on mobile home park in Fort Lauderdale

Another mobile home park bites the dust.

The Morgan Group purchased a mobile home park near a Walmart Supercenter in Fort Lauderdale for $10 million, where it plans to build a large residential project.

The Houston, Texas-based real estate investment firm purchased the 11-acre Sunset Colony Mobile Home Park property for $109 per square foot, records show. The Clarkson-Bergman Family Partnership sold the 110-unit community at 440 Southwest 27th Avenue.

Morgan Group is planning to build a 276-unit complex with six four-story residential buildings on the 11-acre site, according to the Sun Sentinel.

Morgan Group scored a $37.6 million loan from Cadence Bank to build the new residential project.

The property sits behind a Walmart Supercenter at the intersection of Southwest 27th Avenue and West Broward Boulevard.

Chris Conklin of Walker & Dunlop represented the seller in the transaction.

Most of the manufactured homes were owned by the park owner and rented on a month-to-month basis to tenants, according to the Sentinel.

In South Florida, Morgan Group developed Pearl Dadeland, a 412-unit apartment building at 7440 North Kendall Drive as well as Midtown 29, an apartment complex in Miami’s Midtown neighborhood. Morgan has built or acquired more than $3 billion of multifamily assets, consisting of over 20,000 units in Texas, California, Florida, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, according to its website.

Investors are increasingly buying mobile home communities in South Florida for redevelopment as land becomes more scarce. These communities are also attractive because they are viewed as a safe investment during a downturn.

Brookfield, which has more than $350 billion in assets, owns 130-plus mobile home communities. In December 2018, Sam Zell’s Equity LifeStyle paid nearly $50 million, or about $53,000 per lot, for a mobile home park near Riviera Beach.