Greystar Adds to Growing Boston Portfolio

South Carolina-based Greystar is gobbling up more multifamily properties in the Greater Boston area.

Bob Faith’s firm paid $112.5 million for a rental complex at 500 Broadway in the suburb of Malden, the Boston Business Journal reported. The deal for the 295-unit building works out to $381,000 per unit.

Greystar already rebranded the property to Avana Cliffside. The complex last changed hands in 2021, when Portland-based Green Cities Company purchased the property for $95.5 million; the property’s most recent assessment was $69 million.

Greystar is becoming more and more prominent in Boston’s multifamily industry. In the city proper, it owns at least a trio of properties, including the residential building at Boston Landing. Outside the city, it counts at least another five buildings in its portfolio, including properties in Somerville, Quincy and Cambridge.

Greystar is also playing a role in Boston’s renowned life sciences sector. As of late 2023, the firm was planning a 1.4-million-square-foot mixed-use property in the Assembly Square neighborhood of Somerville.

The proposal calls for three separate buildings; two of the buildings would stand 20 stories tall each and comprise more than 1.2 million square feet of lab space. The other building would be a 162,000-square-foot, 200-key hotel, due to be built after the life science buildings.

The project would also feature 11,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, a 4,000-square-foot daycare and 738 parking spaces.

This is the second major multifamily transaction in Malden this year. In April, Boston-based Rockpoint purchased Altitude Apartments at 211 Kennedy Drive from Metropolitan Properties for $268 million. The deal for the 919-unit complex broke down to nearly $292,000 per unit.

As for the seller, Green Cities was recently on the other end of a deal when it purchased Catalyst, a 223-unit building at 123 North Desplaines Street in Chicago’s West Loop, from Marquette Companies and Deutsche Bank affiliate DWS Group for $94 million.

— Holden Walter-Warner