Connor drops $138M for pair of Miramar rental complexes

Ohio-based buyer pays $372K per apartment in its first South Florida purchase

The Connor Group’s Larry Connor, Bell Partners’ Jon Bell and Lili Dunn with Grand Riviera Miramar (The Connor Group, Bell Partners, Google Maps, Getty)
The Connor Group’s Larry Connor, Bell Partners’ Jon Bell and Lili Dunn with Grand Riviera Miramar (The Connor Group, Bell Partners, Google Maps, Getty)

Prolific multifamily investor The Connor Group now has its own slice of South Florida’s booming rental market.

Dayton, Ohio-based Connor paid $138 million in two deals for a pair of adjacent apartment complexes at 11900 Southwest 31st Court and 3040 Southwest 119th Avenue, according to records and real estate database Vizzda. Greensboro, N.C.-based Bell Partners sold the properties, which have a total of 371 units on 28 acres.

The buyer took over a $53.4 million loan on the complexes from the seller, and increased the financing to $86.6 million, Vizzda reported.

In one purchase, Connor paid $53.6 million for the 131-unit Bell Apartments. The second $84.4 million deal was for the 240-unit Grand Riviera Miramar, plus an adjacent 5.7 acres of land, records show.

The entire purchase breaks down to nearly $372,000 per apartment.

The properties total 11 three-story buildings and 15 two-story buildings completed in 2008 to 2009, according to Vizzda. The communities last traded for $98.7 million in two sales, in 2018 and 2019, records show.

Bell Partners is a multifamily firm that has completed more than $22 billion in deals on behalf of investors since 2002, including in South Florida. Last year, the firm dropped $99.5 million for the Bell Sunrise complex at 1015, 1111 and 1201 East Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.

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Led by Jon Bell and Lili Dunn, Bell Partners was founded in 1976.

The Connor Group, led by Larry Connor, does not list any other multifamily properties in South Florida, but owns communities in Tampa and Clearwater, its website shows. The firm has investments elsewhere in the U.S., including in Ohio, Texas, Colorado and Illinois.

Outside Chicago, Connor put the 586-unit Stonebridge of Arlington Heights luxury apartment complex on the market in September. The listing didn’t include a sale price.

South Florida continues to be a hot multifamily market fueled by high demand, despite rising interest rates that have increased buyers’ cost of borrowing. The region became a magnet for out-of-state transplants during the pandemic, prompting record rent increases that have since slowed.

In other recent deals, Lincoln Property Company bought the newly built Amalta Broken Sound apartment community at 5400 Broken Sound Boulevard in Boca Raton for $194 million in September.

In Miramar, AvalonBay Communities bought the Altís Miramar rental complex at 11385 Southwest 30th Court and the adjacent Altra Miramar at 2750 Southwest 113th Lane in August for a combined $295 million.