The Merritt River Apartments complex in Norwalk has been sold for $60 million. The sale of the property, which traded at just over $264,000 per unit, is the highest price-per-square-foot deal in state history.
Starting off the year with a bang, a Fairfield County apartment complex has yielded the highest price-per-square-foot sale in Connecticut history, trading at just over $264,000 per unit.
An affiliate of Norwalk-based Building and Land Technology recently sold Merritt River Apartments, located on Main Avenue in Norwalk at the intersection of the Merritt Parkway and Route 7, to Merritt River Apartments LLC for $60 million.
“This apartment building is in Fairfield County, surrounded by Greenwich, Westport, Stamford and New Haven – and still, it is the highest per-unit sale ever in the state of Connecticut,” said Victor Nolletti of Marcus & Millichap Investment Real Estate Services. “It’s just truly an impressive asset.”
Nolletti explained that the overall campus to which Merritt River Apartments belongs is a first-class commercial/residential complex of considerable proportions.
“We’ve got 1.45 million square feet of space, which includes the 227 apartment units that Building and Land Technology just sold,” he said.
Completed in 2002 and approximately 85 percent leased, the 8-story building offers one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Each of the 227 units features 9-foot-high ceilings, private balconies, new appliances, high-speed Internet access, a marble entrance foyer and full concierge services. On-site amenities include a complete fitness center with a health club, swimming pool and riverfront walking trail, as well as a business center, clubroom, landscaped plaza and an adjacent Metro North train station.
Merritt River Apartments is the housing component in the Merritt River Campus that Building and Land Technology, an office and residential real estate development firm, has been working on for the past few years. Other elements in the sprawling, 1.45 million-square-foot complex include the award-winning Merritt on the River, a 240,000-square-foot historic rehab of the former Caldor Headquarters Building. The Hewitt Building, a 250,000-square-foot, 8-story, fully leased structure that Building and Land Technology purchased from Hewitt Assoc. is also on the campus, as is The Towers at Merritt River – two signature buildings that will soon flank the Hewitt Building and total 650,000 square feet of Class A office space. Construction on The Towers is ongoing.
The Merritt River Campus is adjacent to the Merritt 7 corporate complex, which totals 1.5 million square feet of Class A office space spread throughout six buildings. Recognized as a premiere corporate office park in Fairfield County, Merritt 7 is home to many Fortune 500 companies.
‘An Outstanding Asset’
Building and Land Technology President and Chief Executive Officer Carl R. Kuehner III said the Merritt River Apartments sale “clearly demonstrates the value that has been created by the Merritt River Campus development as well as the overall attractiveness of Greater Norwalk to the investment community.”
Steve Witten, a broker with Marcus & Millichap’s National Multifamily Housing Division and the listing broker for the transaction, noted that Marcus & Millichap was “proud to represent Building and Land Technology in such a record-breaking transfer at $264,000 per unit.”
“We’ve got [1.45 million] square feet currently occupied, and we’re pushing [even more] in the very near future [when construction on The Towers is completed],” added Nolletti, who is also with the firm’s National Multifamily Housing Division. “This asset is nestled amid that Class A office space and it’s immediately accessible off the Merritt Parkway. It’s just an outstanding asset, and even has distance views of the Long Island Sound from some of the floors.”
Nolletti said Merritt River Apartments was constructed over the last two years, adding the construction continues on parts of the campus. After it was put on the market late last fall, he noted, it took about 60 days to go through the bid process and determine which offers contained acceptable terms.
“It didn’t take us very long to choose the ultimate buyer,” he said.
As far as whether the highest price-per-square-foot sale would have an impact on the surrounding market, or Connecticut’s apartment market in general, Nolletti didn’t seem to think it would much of an impact at all.
“I think the asset is so unique in its location and the surrounding environment that this sale doesn’t have an overly significant effect on the bulk of the market from a value standpoint,” he said. “There are no truly comparable assets anyway. You have a different numeric valuation on a Double A asset like this, and when it’s truly an extremely unique location, it doesn’t have an impact. You’re not putting another mid-rise luxury apartment building in the Merritt 7 complex – there’s just no other place to put one. That niche is there for good.”
Witten and Nolletti, who are based in New Haven, also said they recently closed 165 units in East Haven for $16.5 million, 98 units in Hamden for $8.73 million and 303 units in Manchester for $35.6 million. Marcus & Millichap Investment Real Estate Services is the largest investment property brokerage company in the United States specializing in the analysis, marketing and disposition of apartment buildings, shopping centers and office buildings.
“We’ve closed on several buildings already. We’re certainly having an active year, and certainly there were numerous other sales we completed in conjunction with this,” said Nolletti. “It has been an active year, but the significance of this [Merritt River Apartments] deal is that obviously no properties have ever traded at [$264,000] a door. I think this is a phenomenal long-term investment for the buyer.”
Building & Land Technology, a second-generation real estate development company, has completed ventures worth more than $1 billion in the role of developer, builder and/or historic redeveloper. Its numerous office parks, apartment complexes, single-family subdivisions, common-interest communities and adaptive-reuse projects are located throughout Fairfield County and on the West Coast. Current developments in Connecticut, in addition to The Towers at Merritt River in Norwalk, include Buckingham in Avon, which is a community of 200 single-family homes, and Arlington Woods in Danbury, a development of 100 luxury townhomes.
