Los Angeles multifamily developer seeks office space in Fort Lauderdale

This post was written by Erik Bojansky and published on 9/5/2022 on BizJournals.com

A Los Angeles-based real estate investment and development company that specializes in building apartments is seeking office space in Fort Lauderdale. Errol Blumer, senior VP of acquisitions for Cypress Equity Investments (CEI), said his company is actively searching for office space in the downtown Fort Lauderdale area near Las Olas Boulevard.

The search for office space is part of CEI’s strategy of acquiring real estate and building new multifamily projects in South Florida, the Tampa Bay region, Greater Orlando, and the Space Coast, Blumer said. CEI has already opened an office in St. Petersburg, within the Synovus Bank Building at 333 3rd Ave. N.

An office in downtown Fort Lauderdale is desirable because it’s centrally located within the tri-county area, Blumer said.

“As we ramp up towards our goal of acquiring a pipeline of more than 2,000 units per year, this office will be home to myself and one or two construction managers, with the possibility for immediate growth for additional acquisitions associates, construction managers, and support staff,” Blumer said.

To ramp up its efforts, Blumer was recruited to the Fort Lauderdale office of CEI from Northrnarq, where he previously worked as SVP of investment sales.

Wesley Geys, now a SVP and partner of CEI, was recruited from the Orlando office of Jefferson Apartment Group to head CEI’s St. Petersburg expansion effort.

” … We are spearheading the CEI Florida team’s expansion efforts as we seek institutional quality, ground-up, and existing garden, mid-rise, and high-rise multifamily opportunities across the state,” Blumer said.

Founded in 2001 by Michael Sorochinsky, CEI has purchased, developed, and invested in more than 160 projects valued at more than $15 billion, according to the company’s website.

Initially focused on improving multifamily and retail properties, CEI began building “Class A multifamily apartments” in 2010, and now has properties in throughout California, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Florida, the New York metro area, Greater Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, and Las Vegas. In a release, CEI stated it has completed 9,004 apartment units in those markets and has another 11,000 in the pipeline.

CEI has already completed some notable real estate moves in Broward County.

In May 2018, CEI partnered with Miami-based Eden Multifamily in the
$13.8 million purchase of a 1.55-acre lot near Las Olas Boulevard to build a 32-story tower. In October 2019, Eden and CEI sold a majority interest in the land to Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co. for $16.8 million to build the 374-unit Registry Las Olas on the site.

In April 2021, Eden and CEI broke ground on a 212-unit apartment complex in Tamarac.

Then, in October 2021, CEI formed a joint venture with Winter Properties, a vertically integrated real estate investment, management, and development company that is already involved in the construction of a 457-unit apartment tower in downtown West Palm Beach.

In a release, CEI credited its partnership with Winter Properties for helping finance the company’s expansion into Florida.

South Florida’s real estate market has grown exponentially since the pandemic as wealthy households and well-paid professionals migrated from other parts of the U.S. to Florida to take advantage of the state’s low regulations, decent weather, and lack of an income tax. This migration has made rents skyrocket by as much as 31% year over year, brokers and developers have told the Business Joumal.

Additionally, rising rents and home prices have enhanced investor interest in South Florida. Last year, there were $25 billion in transactions involving multifamily buildings, according to JLL. Meanwhile, trusts and corporations bumped up their purchases of single-family homes in the second quarter of 2022, according to Redfin. Their goal: to either rent or sell them for profit.

Although there are signs that rent growth is slowing in South Florida, there are concerns that rent hikes will harm the region’s apparent economic progress.

CEI, however, is bullish on the Sunshine State’s “gateway markets,” and is confident that places such as South Florida “will continue to attract highly educated and highly skilled new residents from foreign and domestic areas alike, thus driving the need for additional multifamily housing,”