Trinsic plans 340-unit apartment building in Fort Lauderdale’s Cypress Creek area

Trinsic Residential Group plans to build a 340-unit apartment building with an affordable housing component on a parking lot next to a Westin hotel in the Cypress Creek area of Fort Lauderdale.

Trinsic hopes to break ground on the 12-story apartment building by the end of this year and will operate the building under its Aura brand, said Chad Bradshaw, Trinsic’s managing director in Florida. Amenities will include a walking path, putting green, dog park, and pickleball court, according to a report by the staff of the Fort Lauderdale Planning and Zoning Board.

But the 24-to-30-month construction phase of the development may start later because construction loans with acceptable terms are scarce, Bradshaw said.

“The sooner the better, but there are not favorable terms out there for doing large commercial projects,” Bradshaw told The Real Deal on Tuesday.

The Fort Lauderdale City Commission last week rezoned 6.8 acres, including the Westin hotel and the surface parking lot, from “county hotel R-6” (County R-6) and “county one-family district” (County R-1-C) to “planned development district” (PDD).

Dallas-based Trinsic has a contract to buy the parking lot from PFL VII LLC, the owner of the 298-room Westin Fort Lauderdale. Bradshaw declined to disclose the price.

PFL VII LLC paid $40.3 million in 2007 to acquire the hotel property at 400 North Corporate Drive, northeast of the intersection of Cypress Creek Road and I-95, according to property records. The hotel was built in 1986. The limited liability company is led by James A. Procaccianti, Elizabeth A. Procaccianti, and Michael Hosmer, all based in Cranston, Rhode Island, according to the Florida Division of Corporations.

The Aura-branded apartment building will have 18 three-bedroom units, 134 two-bedroom units, and 188 studio/one-bedroom units, as well as 4,717 square feet of commercial space. The studio/one-bedroom apartments would include 51 designated as affordable housing. Tenants eligible to rent these units would have income in the range of 100 percent of area median  income, Bradshaw said. Median income for a family of four in Broward County was $88,500 last year, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Bradshaw said monthly rents at the 289 market-rate apartments would be less than rents at the nearest apartment building, Emera Port Royale at 3333 South Port Royale Drive, a waterfront property east of Trinsic’s development site. He said monthly rents at Emera Port Royale exceed $3 per square foot.

Office buildings have been the prevalent type of commercial development in the Cypress Creek area, so “we’re kind of making a new market there,” Bradshaw said. “There aren’t many comps that exist there except for the Emera Port Royale to the east.”

Trinsic’s Aura-branded multifamily developments in South Florida include an eight-story building with 322 units in Boca Raton, a nine-story building with 373 units in North Miami Beach, and a 292-unit complex in Delray Beach.

“We need to be busier, to be honest, but it’s tough when your institutional partners are all on the sidelines, wringing their hands,” Bradshaw said. “Hopefully that changes with a little interest rate relief.”