Hawaii’s former richest person pays $108M for newly built Fort Lauderdale apartments

Jay Shidler, who years ago ranked as Hawaii’s wealthiest resident, is expanding his South Florida multifamily portfolio, scooping up a newly built Fort Lauderdale apartment complex for $108.3 million.

His Honolulu-based Shidler Group bought the Riverland Apartments at 420-432 Southwest 27th Avenue from the project’s developer, Houston-based Morgan Group, according to records. The buyer’s affiliate borrowed $81 million from Webster Bank to finance the purchase.

The 276-unit community consists of six four-story buildings, property records show. It was completed last year.

The deal breaks down to $392,210 per unit.

Morgan Group, led by Chairman Michael Morgan and CEO Philip Morgan, built Riverland on 11 acres that formerly were home to a 110-unit mobile home park. Morgan paid $10 million for the site in 2020.

Riverland offers studios, as well as one- to three-bedroom apartments, with rents ranging from $1,915 to $3,709 a month, according to Apartments.com.

The deal follows Shidler Group’s purchase of the Sealofts at Boynton Village apartment complex at 600 Sealofts Drive for $153 million in December.

Shidler ranked as Hawaii’s richest person in 2014 when his estimated net worth was $700 million, according to a Wealth-X report for that year.

Shidler Group, founded in 1972, has made debt or equity investments in more than 2,000 properties across the U.S., according to its website. In 2019, the company started a platform to invest in rental communities in cost-burdened markets.

Rents across South Florida have skyrocketed over the past year, pricing out locals whose incomes for years have lagged behind that of out-of-staters. Realtor.com ranked the Miami metro area, inclusive of Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as the most cost-burdened nationwide in February, with tenants spending on average 60 percent of their income on rent.

This has created an appetite from investors. In another Fort Lauderdale deal in March, California-based Thomas Tomanek & Associates bought the newly built Motif apartment building in Flagler Village for $195 million.