Bisnow Scoop: Hundreds of Apartments Headed for the East Bay

The Warriors parade in Oakland is all the rage today, but the city across the bay has some long-term plans up its sleeve. Transwestern SVP Steven Orchard gave Bisnow the scoop on 380 units of new multifamily product headed for Oakland and Berkeley.  

Steve tells us Nautilus Group assembled and entitled the portfolio and is now capitalized to build four projects. The site at 2201 Dwight in Berkeley (below) is under construction, with three additional sites in the trendy Temescal neighborhood of uptown Oakland readying to break ground in late-2015. Steve led Transwestern's structured finance group in arranging an undisclosed nine-figure capital stack, including senior debt and joint venture equity, for the projects. Here's a Steve selfie from his downtown LA office.

Steve tells us the equity investor made a strong early move in the East Bay by backing the local developer in select emerging neighborhoods. "The projects will be big wins for the sponsor, the capital and the neighborhoods they are enhancing,” he says. Details on the parties involved are hush, hush. Also noteworthy is construction is being undertaken with a proprietary modular technology that promises faster, cheaper and higher quality work.  

Here's a rendering of the largest of the four sites in Oakland. According to Axiometrics’ recent survey, Oakland is leading the country in effective rent growth with an annualized April increase of 14.8%. The East Bay market also had the highest occupancy at 96.7%.