PB Bell's Development Pipeline Revealed

PB Bell president Chapin Bell, who'll be speaking at the event, tells us about his firm's next moves in Phoenix (just hopefully not from this elevation... we're scared of heights). In Glendale, it has a site under contract for a 286-unit complex. The firm also plans to develop a 200-unit luxury project off 7th Avenue in the Melrose District (we're banking on it being named Melrose Place). The pipeline will only get bigger: Chapin tells us he's aggressively pursuing more acquisitions.

The projects, including Aspera in Glendale (above), come on the heels of PB Bell's big buy here last month: More than 2,700 units in metro Phoenix in a JV with NY-based Stonecutter (which we reported here). It's evidence that PB Bell sees Phoenix as a place to be in the future. “We feel very strongly, at least over the next five years,” Chapin says. “You've got economic improvements, demographic trends that favor apartments, and a development pipeline that is not becoming out of balance based upon absorption expectations.”

But Chapin says that as more capital floods Phoenix looking for deals, value-add plays—like the Laguna Village complex above that was part of the Standard Phoenix Fund acquisition—are harder to find. “You're buying at a pretty aggressive price,” he says. And he says he believes that there are 25 to 50 bps built in for interest rates to go up, while cap rates (5.5%) will remain low. Don't miss even more multifamily trends and great networking—register for our event today.

A JV between Passco Companies and InSite Investment Realty has picked up Ovation at Tempe, a 270-unit, Class-B apartment complex off of South Hardy Drive for nearly $26M. And it's a unique deal: The JV, called Passco InSite, is raising capital not only from its traditional broker/dealer network, but crowdsourcing capital from individuals as well, says Passco CEO Bill Passo. It's an experiment, he tells us. “We've decided to see if this is a viable force in our projects."

Bill says it's a value-add property and it plans to spend in excess of $2M for both exterior and interior renovations on the property, a move that he says should push rents—now between $850 to $925/month—up by $50 to $150/month. Passco is eyeing other value-add investment plays across the Western US in both multifamily and retail, possibly using the blended crowdfunding model as well, he says.

Bill also recently took ice to head for ALS research, a cause already close to his heart (The ALS Association reports that it's now up to $180.4M in donations from the ice bucket challenge as of today). Passco supports other charitable orgs as well, including the Orangewood Children's Foundation (which helps victims of abuse, neglect and abandonment), Apartments4Heroes (which provides low-cost apartments to wounded veterans), KidWorks (which helps at-risk children and families), the American Red Cross, and many local fire departments.