Berkadia Arranges $115M Sale of Orange County Community

By Samantha Goldberg

The buyer plans to update the 292-unit Amerige Pointe, which is located within a historic master-planned community.

Fullerton, Calif.--Amerige Pointe, a 292-unit Class A property within the master-planned Amerige Heights community, sold for $115 million, Berkadia announced. The sale, which comes out to about $394,000 per unit, was facilitated by Berkadia‘s Joe Leon, Jeff Rowerdink and Dean Zander, who represented both the seller and the buyer.

The buyer and seller were not disclosed, but the last time the property sold was in 2004, when PGIM Real Estate bought the community for about $89,000 per unit from Morgan Group, according to Yardi Matrixdata.

Located at 1001 Starbuck St., in North Orange County’s Sunny Hills neighborhood, Amerige Pointe comprises 17 three-story buildings and 10,300 square feet of retail space. The 12.5-acre site offers a mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units as well as some townhome apartments. Units range in size from 690 square feet for a studio and up to 1,327 square feet for a three-bedroom/two-bath unit, with monthly rents of $1,994 and $2,847, respectively, according to Yardi Matrix.

Unit features include detached garages, washers and dryers, 9-foot ceilings and kitchens with islands. The community offers amenities like an indoor sports court, conference room, theater, game room, fitness center and resort-style pool with spa. The property’s occupancy is currently at 96.9 percent, according to Yardi Matrix data.

The buyer is described as a global fund and plans to upgrade the interiors and some of the common area spaces.

“Since the interiors were over 10 years old, Amerige represented a rare opportunity to acquire an institutional-quality multifamily asset in North Orange County with a value-add component,” Zander said. The community is located across from a retail center anchored by Target and Albertson’s grocery store. It is also close to downtown Fullerton and has access to the master-planned community’s amenities, which include the Town Center with more than 400,000 square feet of retailers. Amerige Heights also offers two schools, Robert Fisler Elementary and Sunny Hills High School.“All of the schools that service this district are rated 10 out of 10,” Leon said. “This is very rare and helped create tremendous interest in this offering.”

​Amerige Heights has a long history, founded by brothers George and Edward Amerige in 1887. Howard Hughes chose several hundres acres in the Fullterton area to be the home of a defense research facility during the Cold War, and years later the site transformed into Amerige Heights, where walkable streets, parks, shops and community buildings were built. Community planner Peter Calthorpe has provided input on the development of the community.