SANTA MONICA, CA - M West Holdings announced today that it has completed its seventh Los Angeles acquisition in 30 months with the purchase of 3111 Fourth Street Apartments, a 60 unit multifamily property located at the corner of 4th and Marine in Santa Monica, California. This off-market never before traded building was built for the seller in 1971, and was operated by the same family ownership for the prior 30 years. Located three short city blocks from the world famous Santa Monica beach, the building consists of a total of 66,692 rentable SQFT on a 39,618 SQFT lot.
The property is located in the "Silicon Beach" area of West LA with Google's new Santa Monica campus located just three blocks away. The project is also two blocks from the up-and-coming Rose Avenue Corridor and five blocks from Abbott Kinney Boulevard, with its outstanding restaurants, bars, stores and art galleries.
Resting on the crest of a hill, the 3111 Fourth Street has ocean views from several units on the 4th Street side of the building, and has unobstructed views from LAX to Downtown to the Getty Center from the units on the rear of the building. Most of the units have two enormous balconies with one accessible from the master bedroom and one accessible from the living area. There are a limited number of 1-Bed/1-Bath units with one double size balcony. Similarly, the 2-Bed/2-Bath units on the ground floor that front 4th Street have unique balconies with large garden level fenced patio areas.
M West plans to renovate the entire building, improving the overall aesthetic appeal, adding property amenities, enhancing the landscaping and substantially upgrading the unit interiors. The cosmetic upgrades will involve making changes to nearly every visible surface of the building. Nadia Elgrably, a Southern California designer with over 30 years of experience has been hired to plan the property renovations, by enhancing the Spanish-Colonial Style. Greening of the property will be affected through modern energy efficiency throughout and with the application of a new "cool-roof" top coating to the roof surface. Upgrades to the building's common areas will include creating outdoor Wi-Fi hotspot seating areas, adding potted succulent plants, installing outdoor grills and pergolas on the sun decks, constructing a new fitness center on the building's lower level, and adding storage facilities.
Karl Slovin, M West's President, states "this unique opportunity to acquire a prime Santa Monica apartment complex was extremely compelling given the true supply constrained nature of the submarket. With barriers to entry as high as they are in Santa Monica, the property at 4th and Marine made a perfect addition to our rapidly growing Los Angeles portfolio. This investment provides our investors with an attractive risk-reward profile, given M West's concentration in Los Angeles markets that have consistently outperformed the overall country in terms of employment, rental rates, and absorption."
Matthew Ellis, SVP of M West calls
Santa Monica "one of the strongest rental markets on the West Coast.
Santa Monica's economy continues to benefit from its increasing significance as a Technology Mecca, which has contributed to double digit market rental rate growth over the past year. We expect rental rate growth to remain robust as the market vacancy rate is only 1% to 2% and as there are limited development opportunities."
Scott Properties Group, a local property manager with over 20 years of experience managing rent controlled apartments in Santa Monica, will manage the property for ownership.
M West is a vertically integrated investment holding company which has been investing in commercial real estate since 1991. M West benefits from a management team that consists of seasoned professionals with broad backgrounds in all facets of commercial real estate investment. M West focuses on Core-Plus and Value-Add multi-family opportunities in pre-defined markets where M West has a competitive advantage. Specifically, M West acquires, renovates, leases, and manages real estate property in Southern California and New York City to provide Limited Partners with outstanding cash flow and long term performance.