Prometheus pays $188M for San Bruno apartment complex

Prometheus Real Estate Group has acquired over 400 garden-style apartments in San Bruno for $188 million, its second multifamily acquisition in the Bay Area in as many months and the sector’s second-priciest trade in San Mateo County this year.

The San Mateo-based apartment landlord and manager paid about $431,000 per unit for the 435-unit Crystal Springs Terrace at 2000 Crystal Springs Road, according to public records. The sellers were Pivnicka Properties and Gerson Bakar & Associates, and the deal closed Sept. 19, documents filed with the San Mateo County Clerk-Recorder’s Office show.

An aerial view of 2000 Crystal Springs Road in San Bruno (via Google Maps)

Crystal Springs Terrace is sandwiched between Interstate 280 and Crystal Springs Road and sits in the bayside foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Completed in 1974, it contains a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments spread across more than two dozen buildings, according to Prometheus’ website and title service records. Units range from 522 to 965 square feet, with monthly lease rates between $2,225 and $3,795 a month, according to Prometheus’ site.

The priciest one-bed, one-bath apartment available for rent costs $2,588 a month, below the citywide average of $3,180 for a one-bed unit, Zumper data show. However, the property’s priciest studio and two-bed units cost between $178 and $450 more a month to rent than the citywide average, according to Zumper data.

A look inside of one of Crystal Springs Terrace’s apartments (via Apartment Guide)

Representatives for Prometheus and Filbert Partners didn’t respond to requests for comment. The latter’s Stephen LoPresti has overseen the acquisition, finance, and asset management of Gerson Bakar’s real estate portfolio for the past two decades, according to Filbert’s website.

Only one other multifamily property in San Mateo County– Bell South City in South San Francisco–has sold for more than Crystal Springs Terrace this year according to commercial real estate analytics firm Reonomy. North Carolina’s Bell Partners paid $206 million in May to acquire the 260-unit complex from Sares Regis Group of Northern California, which works out to about $793,000 a unit.

That’s well above what Prometheus paid on a per-unit basis for Crystal Springs Terrace, and the difference in age between the two properties may have something to do with it. Sares Regis delivered Bell South City to the market in 2019, while Crystal Springs was built nearly 50 years ago. While the latter has been renovated at least once since then, according to reviews of the property on Apartments.com, it’s unclear when that happened or how extensive the renovations were.

The deal for Crystal Springs Terrace closed a month after Prometheus acquired another apartment complex in the Bay Area, paying $52 million for a 94-unit building in Cupertino. The apartment owner and manager also spent $48 million last year to purchase the site of an office building in Los Altos that has the city’s OK to be redeveloped into 196 condos and townhomes.

Prometheus was already one of the Bay Area’s largest apartment landlords and managers before closing those deals, overseeing nearly 10,000 units in Silicon Valley alone, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal. The company’s portfolio encompasses 13,000 apartments in the Bay Area, Oregon and Washington, with another 2,600 units in the pipeline, according to its website.

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