Apartments near Carillon sell for $70 million

Momentum Real Estate Partners LLC, a private equity firm based in Miami, bought Provenza at St. Pete, an apartment community near Carillon Office Park.

Momentum, operating as MREF St. Pete III LLC, paid $70.25 million for the property, according to a deed filed Dec. 23 in Pinellas County. The seller was Passco St. Petersburg DST, which is a part of Passco Companies LLC, based in Irvine, California.

Passco bought the property for $55.6 million in 2015, Pinellas County property appraiser records show.

Provenza at St. Pete, previously called Azure Apartments, is located at 540 Trinity Lane, at the northwest intersection of Interstate 275 and Roosevelt Boulevard. It’s an upscale, Class A community with 308 units, built by Hines in 2014.

“We thought the location of the property in the Carillon submarket was excellent,” said Jeff Olshan, senior vice president of multifamily investments for Passco. “Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater is highly desirable, based on population growth and job growth as well as per-capita income in that submarket.”

In making the determination to sell, Passco saw a lot of new apartments coming into the market that would be competitive. In addition, the 2020 election creates some uncertainties. The combination of those factors made now a good time to sell, Olshan said.

“We felt like a bird in the hand would be a better way to operate at this point and get a strong return for our investors,” Olshan said.

Passco also has a property in Tampa, Pearce at Pavilion.

“We’re big proponents of Florida and when we see an opportunity to buy we try to seize it and when there’s an opportunity to sell, we take advantage of it as well,” Olshan said.

Momentum has properties in Texas and in Florida, including Jefferson Westshore in Tampa, according to its website. A call to Momentum for additional information was pending return.